The Shilluk Kingdom was located along the banks of the White Nile river in modern South Sudan. Its capital and royal residence was in the town of Fashoda. According to their folk history and neighboring accounts, the kingdom was founded during the mid-fifteenth century CE by its first ruler, the demigod Nyikang. During the nineteenth century, the Shilluk were affected by military assaults from the Ottoman Empire and later British colonization in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. The Shilluk king is currently not an independent political leader, but a traditional chieftain within the governments of South Sudan and Sudan.