The story of the name begins when Arab nomad tribes roaming the Butana plains in East-central Sudan chose the place where the city is built as a market place called Suq Abu Sinn (the Market of Abu Sinn), where the nomads exchanged their commercial commodities with the indigenous people.

[1][2] Al-Gada-ye-rif market place developed into a village; then into a town with its dwellers cultivating its fertile soil with sorghum, sesame, peanuts and vegetables.

According to Holt and Daly, the Shukriya, who were camel-owning nomads and the leading tribe of the southern Butana, were living and ruling the grain-producing rain lands of Gadarif or Qadarif, where a tribal market developed.

He mentioned in his book The Nile Tributaries Of Abyssinia that it lay on the trade route between Khartoum and Kassala, and described at length its twice-weekly market.

They had no choice except to settle their status with the British to stay and live with their families in the western part of Gedaref, which later became the basis of the Mayoral Bakr, whose influence extends to the frontier town of Gallabat on the Sudanese-Ethiopian border.

[5] During the Second World War, Gedaref became very important for the Condominium of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, by providing food (mainly grain and oil seeds) to the armies of the Allies in East Africa.

After the war the town became also more attractive for agricultural investment to many segments of Sudanese tribes, especially after the establishment of the Mechanized Farming Corporation in 1968.

[6][7][8] The geographical feature of the city is marked by a group of hills surrounding it and small khors (tiny dry valley creeks).

In the autumn during the rainy seasons, or Kharief (Arabic الخريف) as it is locally called, large pools of water and green meadows with trees of various kinds of acacia cover the area.

The early advent of the flamingo flock, or the Simber (Arabic السمبر) as it is locally called, gives the sign of the beginning of the Kharif.

Many large and endless individual fields grew suddenly and have scattered over the whole area surrounding Gedarif such as Um-seinat, Al-Ghadambliya, making use of the fertile soil and abundant rainfall (avg.

[10] With the cultivation of sesame seed, sunflower, cotton, peanuts and cereals, especially sorghum, Gedaref has become the country's granary.

Today the mosaic of population includes many Sudanese tribes from different regions as far as Dar Fur, Kordofan, southern and northern Sudan.

Kurds, Armenians, Panian of India, Greeks, Egyptian Copts, Ethiopians, Eritrean, Somalis, Chadians, Yemenis, Italians has been Sudanized since generations and well integrated in the Gedaref community.

The main reason for this gathering of foreign and local groups of people in Gedaref can be attributed to the Agricultural boom that swept the city and turned it to a major centre of trade in the area.

With the establishment of Al Qadarif University the city has accomplished its dream to become an education shrine for the whole area of southeast Sudan.

[13] Among the famous children of the city are Rashid Bakr (former Vice President 1983) and Ahmed Al Jabri (singer).