The Sudanian Savanna is a broad belt of tropical savanna

Tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands

Tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands are a grassland terrestrial biome located in semi-arid to semi-humid climate regions of subtropical and tropical latitudes. Grasslands are dominated by grass and other herbaceous plants. Savannas are grasslands with scattered trees...

 that runs east and west across the Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

n continent, from the Atlantic Ocean

Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...

 in the west to the Ethiopian Highlands

Ethiopian Highlands

The Ethiopian Highlands are a rugged mass of mountains in Ethiopia, Eritrea , and northern Somalia in the Horn of Africa...

 in the east. The Sahel

Sahel

The Sahel is the ecoclimatic and biogeographic zone of transition between the Sahara desert in the North and the Sudanian Savannas in the south.It stretches across the North African continent between the Atlantic Ocean and the Red Sea....

, a belt of drier grasslands and acacia savannas, lies to the north, between the Sudanian Savanna and the Sahara Desert. To the south the forest-savanna mosaic

Forest-savanna mosaic

Forest-savanna mosaic is an transitory ecotone between the tropical moist broadleaf forests of Equatorial Africa and the drier savannas and open woodlands to the north and south of the forest belt...

 is a transition zone between the Sudanian Savanna and the Guinean moist forests and Congolian forests

Congolian forests

The Congolian forests are a broad belt of lowland tropical moist broadleaf forest which extends across the basin of the Congo River and its tributaries in Central Africa...

 that lie nearer the equator.

Ecoregion
The World Wide Fund for Nature

World Wide Fund for Nature

The World Wide Fund for Nature is an international non-governmental organization working on issues regarding the conservation, research and restoration of the environment, formerly named the World Wildlife Fund, which remains its official name in Canada and the United States...

 divides the Sudanian Savanna into two ecoregion

Ecoregion

An ecoregion , sometimes called a bioregion, is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than an ecozone and larger than an ecosystem. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and contain characteristic, geographically distinct assemblages of natural...

s, separated by the Cameroon Highlands. The West Sudanian savanna runs from the Atlantic Ocean to eastern Nigeria, and the East Sudanian savanna

East Sudanian savanna

The East Sudanian Savanna is a hot, dry, tropical savanna ecoregion of central Africa.-Location and description:This is the eastern half of the broad savanna belt which runs east and west across Africa, this section lying east of the Cameroon Highlands...

 runs from the Cameroon Highlands east to the Ethiopian Highlands

Ethiopian Highlands

The Ethiopian Highlands are a rugged mass of mountains in Ethiopia, Eritrea , and northern Somalia in the Horn of Africa...

.

Physiographic province
The Sudanian Savanna is one of the three distinct physiographic provinces of the larger African massive division. Physiography divides this province into three distinct physiographic sections, the Niger Basin

Niger River

The Niger River is the principal river of western Africa, extending about . Its drainage basin is in area. Its source is in the Guinea Highlands in southeastern Guinea...

, the Lake Chad Basin

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 ...

, and the Middle Nile Basin.

Vegetation
The Sudanian Savanna is characterized by the coexistence of trees and grasses. Dominant tree species are often belonging to the Combretaceae

Combretaceae

Combretaceae is a family of flowering plants in the order Myrtales. The family includes about 600 species of trees, shrubs, and lianas in 18 genera. The family includes the leadwood tree, Combretum imberbe. Three genera, Conocarpus, Laguncularia and Lumnitzera, grow in mangrove habitats ....

 and Caesalpinioideae

Caesalpinioideae

Caesalpinioideae is a botanical name at the rank of subfamily, placed in the large family Fabaceae or Leguminosae. Its name is formed from the generic name Caesalpinia....

, some Acacia

Acacia

Acacia is a genus of shrubs and trees belonging to the subfamily Mimosoideae of the family Fabaceae, first described in Africa by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in 1773. Many non-Australian species tend to be thorny, whereas the majority of Australian acacias are not...

species are also important. The dominant grass species are usually Andropogoneae

Andropogoneae

Andropogoneae is a tribe of grasses widespread throughout tropical and temperate regions. They use C4 carbon fixation physiology. All members of this tribe specifically utilize the NADP-Malic Enzyme subtype of C4 Photosynthesis. This tribe is commonly referred to as the sorghum tribe...

, especially the genera Andropogon

Andropogon

Andropogon is a genus of grasses. Andropogon gerardii, big bluestem, is the official state grass of Illinois.Broomsedge is found along the eastern United States...

and Hyparrhenia

Hyparrhenia

Hyparrhenia is a genus of grasses. Many species are known commonly as thatching grass. They are mostly native to tropical Africa; some can be found in warmer areas in temperate Eurasia. These are annual and perennial bunch grasses...

, on shallow soils also Loudetia

Loudetia

Loudetia is a genus of grass in the Poaceae family.-External links:*...

and Aristida. Much of the Sudanian Savanna region is used in the form of parklands, where useful trees, such as shea

Shea

Vitellaria paradoxa, also classified as Butyrospermum parkii and B. paradoxa, commonly known as shea tree, shi tree, or , vitellaria or karité, is a tree of the Sapotaceae family indigenous to Africa, occurring in Mali, Cameroon, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Togo, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan,...

, baobab

Baobab

Adansonia is a genus of eight species of tree, six native to Madagascar, one native to mainland Africa and the Arabian Peninsula and one to Australia. The mainland African species also occurs on Madagascar, but it is not a native of that island....

, locust-bean tree

Parkia biglobosa

Parkia biglobosa or Néré is a tree of the genus Parkia in the family Fabaceae. In West Africa, its fruits are fermented to a condiment called "soumbala" or "dawa-dawa"....

 and others are spared from cutting, while sorghum

Sorghum

Sorghum is a genus of numerous species of grasses, one of which is raised for grain and many of which are used as fodder plants either cultivated or as part of pasture. The plants are cultivated in warmer climates worldwide. Species are native to tropical and subtropical regions of all continents...

, maize

Maize

Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...

, millet

Millet

The millets are a group of small-seeded species of cereal crops or grains, widely grown around the world for food and fodder. They do not form a taxonomic group, but rather a functional or agronomic one. Their essential similarities are that they are small-seeded grasses grown in difficult...

or other crops are cultivated beneath.