It stands at the centre of the great S-shaped bend of the Nile, and from it the railway to Wadi Halfa strikes straight across the Nubian Desert, a little west of the old caravan route to Korosko.

]A branch railway, 138 mi long, from Abu Hamad goes down the right bank of the Nile to Karima in the Dongola mudiria.

A 19th-century traveler described the town:[2]Abou-Hammed is a miserable village, inhabited by a few hundred Ababdehs and Bishàrees; the desert here extended to the water's edge, while the opposite banks were as green as emerald.

It formerly belonged to an Ababdeh shekh [sic] but was then deserted.The town is named after a celebrated sheikh buried here, by whose tomb travellers crossing the desert used formerly to deposit all superfluous goods, the sanctity of the saint's tomb ensuring their safety.

[1] The Battle of Abu Hamed, a part of the Anglo-Egyptian reconquest of the Sudan, took place near the town on 7 August 1897.