Sudan

Sudan has a population of 43 million and occupies 1,886,068 square kilometres. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, Libya to the northwest, Chad to the west, the Central African Republic to the southwest, South Sudan to the south, Ethiopia to the southeast, Eritrea to the northeast. It was the largest country in Africa and the Arab world by area before the secession of South Sudan in 2011.

About Sudan in brief

Summary Sudan Sudan has a population of 43 million and occupies 1,886,068 square kilometres. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, Libya to the northwest, Chad to the west, the Central African Republic to the southwest, South Sudan to the south, Ethiopia to the southeast, Eritrea to the east, and the Red Sea to the northeast. It was the largest country in Africa and the Arab world by area before the secession of South Sudan in 2011. Sudan is a member of the United Nations, the Arab League, African Union, COMESA, Non-Aligned Movement and the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation. The economy has been described as lower-middle income and relies on oil production despite a long-term international sanctions and isolation. The name derives from the Arabic bilād as-sūdān, or the \”Land of the Blacks\”. The idea of Sudanese nationalism goes back to the 1930s and 1940s when it was popularised by young intellectuals. By the eighth millennium BC, people settled into a sedentary way of life on the Nile with fishing, hunting and gathering grain and cattle. During the fifth millenniumBC, migrations from the drying Sahara brought neolithic people into the Nile Valley along with agriculture. The population that resulted from this resulted in a social hierarchy over the next centuries which became the next phase of pharaonic culture. During this period, the Nubians formed the three Christian kingdoms of Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia, with the latter two lasting until around 1500.

From the 16th–19th centuries, central and eastern Sudan were dominated by the Funj sultanate, while Darfur ruled the west and the Ottomans the far north. In 1953 Britain granted Sudan self-government. Independence was proclaimed on 1 January 1956. Since independence, Sudan has been ruled by a series of unstable parliamentary governments and military regimes. Under the Jaafar Nimeiry regime, Sudan began Islamist rule. Between 1989 and 2019, Sudan experienced a 30-year-long military dictatorship led by Omar al-Bashir accused of widespread human rights abuses including torture, persecution of minorities, allegations of sponsoring global terrorism and notably, ethnic genocide due to its role in the War in the Darfur region that broke out in 2003. The country’s name Sudan is one of several toponyms sharing similar etymologies, ultimately meaning \”land of the blacks\” or similar meanings, in reference to the dark skin of the inhabitants. It became a secular state in 2020 when Islamic laws applied from 1983 until 2020 when the country became asecular state. It has been the site of a civil war between government forces, strongly influenced by the National Islamic Front, and the southern rebels, whose most influential faction was the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) between 1989 and 2011. In the 1990s and 2000s, Sudan was ruled by an Islamist regime led by the self-proclaimed Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad.