Sudan

Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the southeast, and South Sudan to the south. Sudan has a population of 51.8 million people as of 2025 and occupies 1,886,068 square kilometres (728,215 square miles), making it Africa's third-largest country by area. Sudan's capital and most populous city is Khartoum.

The area that is now Sudan witnessed the Khormusan (c. 40000–16000 BC), Halfan culture (c. 20500–17000 BC), Sebilian (c. 13000–10000 BC), Qadan culture (c. 13000–9000 BC), the war of Jebel Sahaba, the earliest known war in the world, around 11500 BC, A-Group culture (c. 3800–3100 BC), Kingdom of Kerma (c. 2500–1500 BC), the Egyptian New Kingdom (c. 1500–1070 BC), and the Kingdom of Kush (c. 785 BC – 350 AD). After the fall of Kush, the Nubians formed the three Christian kingdoms of Nobatia, Makuria, and Alodia. Between the 14th and 15th centuries, most of Sudan was gradually settled by Arab nomads. From the 16th to the 19th centuries, central and eastern Sudan were dominated by the Funj sultanate, while Darfur ruled the west and the Ottomans the east.

From the 19th century, the entirety of Sudan was conquered by the Egyptians under the Muhammad Ali dynasty. Religious-nationalist fervour erupted in the Mahdist Uprising in which Mahdist forces were eventually defeated by a joint Egyptian-British military force. In 1899, under British pressure, Egypt agreed to share sovereignty over Sudan with the United Kingdom as a condominium. In effect, Sudan was governed as a British possession. The Egyptian revolution of 1952 toppled the monarchy and demanded the withdrawal of British forces from all of Egypt and Sudan. Muhammad Naguib, one of the two co-leaders of the revolution and Egypt's first President, was half-Sudanese and had been raised in Sudan. He made securing Sudanese independence a priority of the revolutionary government. On 1 January 1956, Sudan was declared an independent state.

After Sudan became independent, the Gaafar Nimeiry regime began Islamist rule. This exacerbated the rift between the Islamic North, the seat of the government, and the Animists and Christians in the South, who had already waged a civil war from 1955 to 1972. Persistent conflicts over language, religion, and political power erupted in a second civil war between government forces, influenced by the National Islamic Front (NIF), and the southern rebels, whose most influential faction was the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). This eventually led to the independence of South Sudan in 2011.

Between 1989 and 2019, a military dictatorship led by Omar al-Bashir ruled Sudan with the National Congress Party (NCP) and committed widespread human rights abuses, including torture, persecution of minorities, alleged sponsorship of global terrorism, and ethnic genocide in Darfur from 2003–2020. The regime killed an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 people. Protests erupted in 2018, demanding Bashir's resignation, which resulted in a coup d'état on 11 April 2019 and Bashir's imprisonment. Since 2023, Sudan has been embroiled in a third civil war, between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Islam was Sudan's state religion and Sharia law was applied from 1983 until 2020, when the country became a secular state. Sudan is a least developed country and among the poorest countries in the world, ranking 170th on the Human Development Index as of 2024 and 185th by nominal GDP per capita. Its economy largely relies on agriculture due to international sanctions and isolation, as well as a history of internal instability and factional violence. The large majority of Sudan is dry and over 60% of Sudan's population lives in poverty. Sudan is a member of the United Nations, Arab League, African Union, COMESA, Non-Aligned Movement and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.