Country Guides - News and Background Notes


sdn´, officially Republic of Sudan, republic (2005 est. pop. 40,187,000), 967,494 sq mi (2,505,813 sq km), NE Africa. The largest country in Africa, it borders on Egypt in the north, on the Red Sea in the northeast, on Eritrea and Ethiopia in the east, on Kenya, Uganda, and Congo (Kinshasa) in the south, on the Central African Republic and Chad in the west, and on Libya in the northwest. Khartoum is the capital and Omdurman is the largest city.



Much of the rest of the country is made up of an undulating plateau (1,000–2,000 ft/305–610 m high), which rises to higher levels in the mountains located in the northeast near the Red Sea, as well as in the central, western, and extreme southern portions of the country. The highest point in Sudan is Kinyeti (10,456 ft/3,187 m), in the southeast. Rainfall diminishes from south to north in Sudan; thus, the south is characterized by swampland (the Sudd region) and woodland, the center by savanna and grassland, and the north by desert and semidesert.


The inhabitants of Sudan are divided into three main groups. The northerners, who inhabit the country roughly north of 12°N lat. and mainly near the Nile, consist of Arab and Nubian groups; they are Muslim (mostly of the Sunni branch), speak Arabic (the country's official language), and follow Arab cultural patterns (although only relatively few are descended from the Arabs who emigrated into the region during the 13th–19th cent.). The westerners, so called because they immigrated (primarily in the 20th cent.) from W Africa, are also Muslim, live mostly in the central part of Sudan, and work as farmers or agricultural laborers. The southerners, consisting of Nilotic and Sudanic peoples, largely follow traditional religious beliefs, although some are Christian; they practice shifting cultivation or are pastoralists, and most speak Nilotic languages. The leading ethnic groups in the south are the Dinka, Nuer, Shilluk, Bari, and the non-Nilotic Azande.

The great majority of the country's population live in villages or small towns; the only sizable cities are Port Sudan, Wad Madani, Al Ubayyid, and the conurbation of Khartoum, Omdurman, and Khartoum North. The desert and semidesert of the north are largely uninhabited. Since the late 1970s, there have been waves of refugees from neighboring countries, a result of political, environmental, and economic problems in the region. Many have settled in the area around Khartoum. However, in the 1980s and 1990s there was outmigration due to the civil war in the south and, since 2003, the conflict in the Darfur region of W Sudan.


Sudan is an overwhelmingly agricultural country. Much of the farming is of a subsistence kind; agriculture occupies some 80% of the workforce but contributes only 35% of the GDP. Agricultural production varies from year to year because of intermittent droughts that cause widespread famine. The government plays a major role in planning the economy. The leading export crops are cotton, sesame, peanuts, and sugar. Other agricultural products include sorghum, millet, wheat, cassava, tropical fruits, and sweet potatoes. Sheep, cattle, goats, and camels are raised. A variety of forest products are produced, by far the most important being gum arabic, with Sudan accounting for much of the total world production. In the south, fish caught in the Nile system are an important dietary staple. The leading products of the country's small mining industry are iron ore, copper, and chromium ore. Petroleum deposits were developed in the 1970s, but the work was discontinued in the mid-1980s as military conflict in the south intensified. In the late 1990s, the government sought foreign partners to help redevelop the oil sector, and a pipeline was built from S Sudan to Port Sudan, on the Red Sea. Sudan began exporting crude oil in 1999.

Industry is largely confined to agricultural processing and light manufacturing; the chief products include ginned cotton, textiles, processed food, beverages, soap, footwear, pharmaceuticals, and armaments. There is also some automobile and light-truck assembly. Petroleum is refined and hydroelectric power is produced. The country has a very limited transportation network. Foreign trade is largely conducted via Port Sudan. Chief among the annual imports are food, manufactured goods, refinery and transportation equipment, medicines, chemicals, textiles, and wheat; the principal exports are oil and petroleum products, cotton, sesame, livestock, peanuts, gum arabic, and sugar. The leading trade partners are China, Japan, and Saudi Arabia.


Sudan is governed under the constitution of 1998 as amended. The executive branch is headed by a president, who is elected by popular vote for a term of no longer than nine years. The bicameral legislature consists of the 450-seat National Assembly and the 50-seat Council of States. Members of each branch are popularly elected to five-year terms. Administratively, Sudan is divided into 25 states.


Early History

Northeast Sudan, called Nubia in ancient times, was colonized (c.2000 BC) by Egypt as far as the fourth cataract of the Nile (near modern Karima). From the 8th cent. BC to the 4th cent. AD this region was ruled by the Cush kingdom, centered first at Napata (near the fourth cataract) and after c.600 BC at Meroë (between the fifth and sixth cataracts). From c.750 to c.650 BC, Cush ruled Egypt as a result of a dynastic replacement. Meroë was a center of trade and ironworking, and from there iron technology may have spread to other parts of Africa.

Most of the inhabitants of Nubia were converted to Coptic Christianity in the 6th cent. AD, and by the 8th cent. three states flourished in the area. These states long resisted invasions from Egypt, which had come under Muslim rule in the 7th cent. However, from the 13th to the 15th cent. the region was increasingly infiltrated by peoples from the north; the states collapsed, and Nubia gradually became Muslim. The southern part of the modern Sudan continued to adhere to traditional African beliefs. Much of the north was ruled by the Muslim state of Funj from the 16th cent. until 1821, when it was conquered by armies sent by Muhammad Ali of Egypt.

The Era of Foreign Control




Struggles of an Independent Nation


In 1969, Col. Muhammad Gaafur al-Nimeiry staged a successful coup. He banned all political parties and subsequently nationalized banks and numerous industries. The bloody civil war was ended by an agreement between the government and the Southern Sudan Liberation Front (whose military arm was known as Anya Nya) signed (Feb., 1972) at Addis Ababa. Under the agreement S Sudan was granted considerable autonomy. Also in 1972, the Sudanese Socialist Union, the country's only political organization, elected a people's assembly to draw up a new constitution for the country, which was adopted in 1973. Nimeiry's regime became the target of criticism at home because of worsening economic conditions and for its support of Egypt's part in the Camp David accords with Israel; in the late 1970s, Nimeiry dismissed his cabinet and closed universities in an attempt to quell opposition.










Additional protocols relating to peace with the SPLA were signed in early in Jan., 2005, and shortly thereafter a final peace agreement was sealed. The deal called for Islamic law to be restricted to the north, for the south to be autonomous and hold a vote on independence in 2011, and for central government power and southern oil revenues to be shared. Later in January the government signed a preliminary peace agreement with the National Democratic Alliance, an umbrella organization that embraces more than a dozen opposition groups, including the SPLA.





© The Washington Post Company