 Historically, the western part of the Sahel was sometimes known as the Sudan region ("bilād as-sūdān" "lands of the blacks").This belt was roughly located between the Sahara and the coastal areas of West Africa.The Sahel spans from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the east, in a belt that varies from several hundred to a thousand kilometers (c. 600 miles) in width, covering an area of .