50 Fun Facts About Sudan

The river that joins the White Nile at Sudan's capital is named after which colour?

It rises in Ethiopia and runs nearly 800 km through Sudan. One folk etymology says 'Khartoum' means 'elephant's trunk', after the strip of land between the rivers.

Which country lies directly north of Sudan?

Lake Nubia straddles the border. Egypt ruled Sudan in the 19th century and shared sovereignty with Britain from 1899 to 1956.

Sudan's coastline lies on which body of water?

The 853 km coast includes Port Sudan, the outlet for South Sudan's oil pipeline and the country's main harbour.

Sudan was the largest country in Africa until which event in 2011?

It is now third, behind Algeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and lost about three-quarters of its oilfields in the split.

In which year did Sudan become independent?

The Egyptian and British flags came down on 1 January and prime minister Ismail al-Azhari raised a new blue, yellow and green tricolour.

From 1899 until independence, Sudan was governed as a 'condominium' shared by Britain and which country?

In practice it was run as a British colony. Egypt's 1952 revolutionaries, one of them half-Sudanese, gave up their claim to speed independence.

The name Sudan comes from the Arabic bilad as-sudan, meaning what?

Ancient Egyptians called the region Ta Seti, 'land of the bow', after its famed Nubian archers.

The Kingdom of Kush was centred first at Napata and later at which city between the Fifth and Sixth Cataracts?

Its iron industry earned it the nickname 'the Birmingham of Africa'. Kerma was the capital of an even earlier kingdom, destroyed by Thutmose I.

In the 8th century BC, Kushite kings conquered Egypt and ruled as pharaohs of which dynasty?

King Kashta began the conquest and Piye completed it. The 'black pharaohs' ruled for nearly a century until the Assyrians drove them out.

In the 1830s the Italian treasure-hunter Giuseppe Ferlini demolished more than 40 of what at Meroë?

He found gold jewellery in the tomb of Queen Amanishakheto, but nobody in Europe believed such work could come from sub-Saharan Africa until Berlin and Munich bought it.

The site of Jebel Sahaba in Sudan is famous as evidence of the earliest known what, around 11,500 BC?

Dozens of skeletons in a cemetery near the Egyptian border bore wounds from arrows and spears.

What did the Christian Nubian kingdom of Makuria manage in 641 and 652 that few states did?

The result was a unique non-aggression pact with an annual exchange of gifts that kept Nubia independent for centuries.

In medieval Christian Nubia, who was the rightful heir to the throne?

Succession was matrilineal, and women could own land, be educated and endow churches. The culture has been described as 'Afro-Byzantine'.

Which Islamic sultanate, founded in 1504, dominated central Sudan from Sennar until the 19th century?

Its kings kept un-Islamic customs like divine kingship and drinking alcohol into the 18th century. The Keira sultans ruled Darfur to the west.

Which ruler of Egypt sent his son to conquer northern Sudan in 1821?

Technically an Ottoman governor, he ran Egypt as his own. The Turco-Egyptian regime that followed was known in Sudan as the Turkiyah.

The leader whose revolt took Khartoum in 1885 claimed which messianic title?

Muhammad Ahmad, the 'Guided One' of Islamic prophecy, died of typhus six months after taking the city, and his successor took the title Khalifa.

Which British general was killed when the Mahdi's forces stormed Khartoum in January 1885?

'Chinese Gordon' had been sent to evacuate the city and instead held it for almost a year. His death made him a Victorian martyr.

Kitchener's reconquest of Sudan culminated in which battle on 2 September 1898?

Maxim guns cut down some 10,000 Mahdists in five hours for 48 British dead. A young Winston Churchill rode in the cavalry charge.

According to Churchill, what did Kitchener take as a trophy from the Mahdi's tomb?

The tomb in Omdurman was later restored and is a major landmark. The Mahdi's descendants still lead the Umma party.

Colonel Gaafar Nimeiry seized power in a coup in which year?

He survived a Communist counter-coup in 1971, signed the Addis Ababa peace with the south in 1972 and imposed Sharia in 1983.

The general who went on to rule Sudan for three decades seized power in which year?

His bloodless coup came on 30 June. He appointed himself president in 1993 and was the only legal candidate in the 1996 election.

Which terrorist leader did Sudan host in the 1990s, earning it a US state-sponsor listing?

Speaker Hassan al-Turabi invited him. After the 1998 embassy bombings the US bombed the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum, wrongly believing it made chemical weapons.

The Darfur war led the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for whom?

He was the first sitting head of state indicted by the ICC. Arab militias known as the Janjaweed were accused of the worst atrocities.

What was the name of the horse-riding Arab militias accused of atrocities in Darfur?

They were later formalised as the Rapid Support Forces, the paramilitary that went to war with the army in 2023.

Bashir was finally overthrown by the army in April 2019 after months of protests sparked by what?

Protests began on 19 December 2018 amid 70% inflation. A sit-in outside army headquarters ended with the Khartoum massacre of 3 June 2019.

Which economist led Sudan's 2019 transitional government as prime minister until an October 2021 coup?

His cabinet included Sudan's first female foreign minister and first Coptic Christian minister. He resigned for good in January 2022.

The civil war that erupted in Khartoum on 15 April 2023 pits the army against which paramilitary force?

The RSF grew out of the Janjaweed and is led by Hemedti. By 2024 the UN counted more than 8.6 million people forced from their homes.

In which year did Sudan drop Islam as state religion and Sharia law to become secular?

Sharia had applied since 1983. Under the old public-order law women could be flogged for wearing trousers.

Sudan's red, white and black flag dates from 1970. What did the 1956 flag look like?

The colours stood for the Nile, the desert and farmland. Nimeiry replaced it with a design based on Egypt's Arab Liberation Flag.

What is Sudan's highest point?

It is a volcanic crater 3,042 metres up in the Marrah Mountains of Darfur, holding two lakes.

What is the Arabic name for the violent dust storms that can black out the sun over Sudan?

The word, from 'blasting', has been adopted worldwide; haboobs have even been observed on Mars and Titan.

How many states make up Sudan?

They are called wilayat and are further split into 133 districts. Khartoum, Omdurman and Khartoum North together form Greater Khartoum.

Sudan's currency, the pound, is divided into 100 what?

Called qirsh in Arabic. The Sudanese pound has been repeatedly redenominated as inflation eroded it.

Sudan is one of Africa's biggest producers of which metal, mining 82 tonnes of it in 2015?

Kush was famous for it three thousand years ago. Since the loss of the southern oilfields it has become the mainstay of exports.

Which country owns 40% of the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company and arms Sudan?

Oil drove Sudan's boom in the 2000s; production collapsed from 450,000 barrels a day to under 60,000 after the south seceded.

In which year did Sudan, host of the first Africa Cup of Nations in 1957, win the tournament?

They won as hosts. The Sudan Football Association, founded in 1936, is one of the oldest in Africa.

Which two clubs from the city across the Nile from Khartoum are the giants of Sudanese football?

Their derby is one of Africa's fiercest. The others are Cairo, Casablanca and Congolese rivalries.

About what share of Sudan's population identifies as Arab?

The Beja, Fur, Nuba and Nubians are the largest non-Arab groups. Sudanese culture draws on some 578 ethnic groups.

Sudan's two official languages since the 2005 constitution are Arabic and which other?

Around 70 languages are native to the country, and Hausa serves as a trade language in places.

The traditional loose ankle-length garment worn by Sudanese men, usually with a turban, is called what?

Women wrap themselves in the tobe, a long one-piece cloth that often covers the head.

In 2009 a Sudanese woman was prosecuted under the public-order law for wearing what in public?

The 1991 code called it an 'obscene outfit' punishable by 40 lashes; she was fined about US$200 instead after an international outcry.

Which unlikely European instrument became a fixture of Sudanese military bands?

'March Shulkawi No 1' sets Shilluk sounds to a military march. Northern Sudan favours the five-stringed tambur.

Gum arabic and which crop dominated Sudan's exports under British rule?

The Gezira scheme between the two Niles became one of the world's largest irrigated cotton farms.

The Sufi Ansar brotherhood, heirs of the Mahdi's followers, backs which political party?

The rival Khatmia order backs the Democratic Unionists. Sadiq al-Mahdi, the Mahdi's great-grandson, twice served as prime minister.

What did Khartoum's Al-Shifa plant, hit by US missiles in 1998 as a suspected chemical weapons site, actually make?

Operation Infinite Reach followed al-Qaeda's bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Sudan is the third-largest country in Africa. Which two are bigger?

At 1.89 million square kilometres it is also the fifteenth-largest country in the world.

The 2005 agreement that ended the Second Sudanese Civil War was signed in which city?

The Comprehensive Peace Agreement led to the 2011 referendum in which the south voted almost unanimously to secede.

Egypt's first president, General Naguib, had what personal connection to Sudan?

That background made Sudanese independence a priority for Egypt's revolutionary government after 1952.

In 1887 a 60,000-strong Mahdist army invaded which neighbouring empire, reaching Gondar?

Emperor Yohannes IV died fighting them at Metemma in 1889, and Italian troops later pushed the Ansar back at Agordat.

Sudan's population is closest to which figure?

Greater Khartoum alone holds more than five million, and the country hosts over a million refugees, mostly from South Sudan.