Nubia region is located in southern Egypt and northern Sudan, along the Nile, with a history going back 5,000 years in time. The modern inhabitants of southern of Egypt and Sudan still refer to themselves as Nubians. They speak the Nubian language as well as Arabic.

Nubia has been bordered by the Red Sea in the east and the Libyan Desert in the west. The northern part of Nubia, with its northern borders at the first cataract at Aswan was known as Wawat. The southern end, with its northern borders at second cataract (now inundated by Lake Nasser) was referred to as Kush by the Egyptians and as Ethiopia by the ancient Greeks.

The name Nubia either comes from the Nubian word, gold, or from "nugur" or "nub", meaning black. Both are plausible, Nubia was in ancient times both a great producer of gold mainly for the Egyptian market and inhabited by blacks. The most known examples of Nubian state structures is the local kingdom of Kush, and the Kushite dynasty ruling over Egypt for 60 years in the 8th and 7th centuries BCE. The inhabitable areas of Nubia of ancient times were at one time too narrow to sustain strong states, and at the same time Nubia was so close to the rich Egypt that it saw numerous invasions.