For the current region of Chad, see Borkou Region

Borkou Region

Borkou Region is a region of Chad which was created in 2008 from Borkou-Ennedi-Tibesti Region, containing the former Borkou Department.-Geography:Borkou is traversed by the northeasterly line of equal latitude and longitude....

.

Borkou, or Borku, is a region of Central Africa

Central Africa

Central Africa is a core region of the African continent which includes Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Rwanda....

, mostly in Northern Chad

Chad

Chad , officially known as the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest, and Niger to the west...

, forming part of the transitional zone between the arid wastes of the Sahara and the fertile lands of the central Sudan

Sudan

Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...

. It is bounded N. by the Tibesti Mountains

Tibesti Mountains

The Tibesti Mountains are a range of inactive volcanoes located on the northern edge of the Chad Basin in the Borkou- and Tibesti Region of northern Chad. The massif is one of the most prominent features of the Central-Sahara desert and covers an area of approximately 100,000 km². The northern...

, and is in great measure occupied by lesser elevations belonging to the same system. These hills to the south and east merge into the plains of Ouaddaï

Ouaddaï

Ouaddaï may refer to:* Ouaddaï Prefecture* Ouaddaï Region* Ouaddai Empire* Ouaddai plateau*Ouaddaï highlands...

 and Darfur

Darfur

Darfur is a region in western Sudan. An independent sultanate for several hundred years, it was incorporated into Sudan by Anglo-Egyptian forces in 1916. The region is divided into three federal states: West Darfur, South Darfur, and North Darfur...

. South-west, in the direction of Lake Chad

Lake Chad

Lake Chad is a historically large, shallow, endorheic lake in Africa, whose size has varied over the centuries. According to the Global Resource Information Database of the United Nations Environment Programme, it shrank as much as 95% from about 1963 to 1998; yet it also states that "the 2007 ...

, is the Bodele

Bodélé Depression

The Bodélé Depression , located at the southern edge of the Sahara Desert in north central Africa, is the lowest point in Chad. Dust storms from the Bodélé Depression occur on average about 100 days per year , one typical example being the massive dust storms that swept over West Africa and the...

 basin. The drainage of the country is to the lake, but the numerous khors with which its surface is scored are mostly dry or contain water for brief periods only. A considerable part of the soil is light sand drifted about by the wind. The irrigated and fertile portions consist mainly of a number of valleys separated from each other by low and irregular limestone rocks. They furnish excellent dates. Barley is also cultivated. The northern valleys are inhabited by a settled population of Toubou

Toubou

The Tubu are an ethnic group that live mainly in northern Chad, but also in Libya, Niger and Sudan....

 stock, known as the Daza

Daza

The Daza people are a semi-nomadic ethnicity living primarily in the Sahara regions of south-eastern Niger and north and central Chad. They consider themselves a warrior people, and are almost entirely Muslim. The Daza speak the Dazaga language. The increasing desertification of Africa has resulted...

; the others are mainly visited by nomadic Berber

Berber people

Berbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are continuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River. Historically they spoke the Berber language or varieties of it, which together form a branch...

 and Arab

Arab

Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...

 tribes. The inhabitants own large numbers of goats and asses.

A caravan route from Barca

Barca

Barce was an ancient Greek colony and later Roman, Byzantine, city in North Africa. It occupied the coastal area of what is modern day Libya...

 and the Kufra

Kufra

Kufra is a basin and oasis group in Al Kufrah District, southeastern Cyrenaica in Libya. Kufra is historically important above all because at the end of nineteenth century it became the center and holy place of the Senussi order...

 oasis passes through Bourku to Lake Chad. The country long remained unknown to Europeans. Gustav Nachtigal

Gustav Nachtigal

Gustav Nachtigal was a German explorer of Central and West Africa. He is further known as the German Empire's consul-general for Tunisia and Commissioner for West Africa. His mission as commissioner resulted in Togoland and Kamerun becoming the first colonies of a German colonial empire...

 spent some time in it in the year 1871, and gave a valuable account of the region and its inhabitants in his book, Sahara and the Sudan (1879-1889). In 1899 Bourku, by agreement with Great Britain

Great Britain

Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

, was assigned to the French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 sphere of influence. The country, which had formerly been periodically raided by the Walad Sliman Arabs, was then governed by the Senussi

Senussi

The Senussi or Sanussi refers to a Muslim political-religious order in Libya and the Sudan region founded in Mecca in 1837 by the Grand Senussi, Sayyid Muhammad ibn Ali as-Senussi. Senussi was concerned with both the decline of Islamic thought and spirituality and the weakening of Muslim political...

, who had placed garrisons in the chief centres of population. From it raids were made on French territory. In 1907 a French column from Kanem

Kanem

Kanem may refer to:* Kanem Empire* Kanem Prefecture* Kanem Region* Kanem Department...

entered Bourku, but after capturing Am Galakka, the principal Senussi station, retired.