60 free South Sudan trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
South Sudan is the world's youngest widely recognised country, born on 9 July 2011 after a referendum in which almost 99% voted to leave Sudan. This quiz covers the long road there and everything since: two Sudanese civil wars, the Anyanya and the SPLA, John Garang's helicopter crash, the oil that makes up nine-tenths of state revenue, the war between Salva Kiir and Riek Machar, and the country's pivot toward East Africa. Easy questions ask for the capital, the river, the year of independence and the continent's newest UN member; the hard ones want the names once considered for the new state, the meaning of 'Anyanya', the town where Britain and France nearly went to war in 1898, the planned capital that never got built and the world's largest land-mammal migration. There is also the Sudd swamp, the Dinka and Nuer, Juba Arabic, Manute Bol, Luol Deng, the Bright Stars' run to the Paris Olympics and a national anthem that ends in 'Oyee!'. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the country, its history, its people and its wildlife, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which year did South Sudan become an independent state?
2011
Independence Day is 9 July. It became the 193rd member of the United Nations five days later.
Q 02Roughly what share of voters backed independence in the January 2011 referendum?
99%
The exact figure was 98.83%. The vote had been promised by the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended Africa's longest civil war.
Q 03What is the capital and largest city of South Sudan?
Juba
It grew from a Bari village where a mission school opened in 1920 and is the most recently declared national capital in the world.
Q 04The capital city stands on the banks of which river?
The White Nile
In South Sudan the river is known locally as the Bahr al Jabal, the 'Mountain Sea', and it forms the vast Sudd swamp downstream.
Q 05What is the Sudd?
A vast swamp
Its Arabic name means 'barrier', because floating vegetation blocked Nile navigation for centuries. It is one of the largest wetlands on Earth.
Q 06South Sudan is landlocked and shares borders with how many countries?
Six
Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic.
Q 07Which of these names was NOT among those considered for the new country in 2011?
Equatoria
Juwama, a blend of Juba, Wau and Malakal, was another candidate. Equatoria is the name of one of the country's three historic regions.
Q 08South Sudan became which numbered independent country in Africa?
54th
It joined the African Union as its 54th member on 27 July 2011, and Google Maps recognised it that September after a crowd-mapping drive.
Q 09Which SPLA/M founder died in a helicopter crash in July 2005, weeks after becoming Sudan's First Vice-President?
John Garang
He was flying back from a secret meeting with Uganda's president when the Ugandan helicopter hit a mountain in bad weather.
Q 10Who became South Sudan's first president at independence in 2011?
Salva Kiir Mayardit
Rarely seen without his black cowboy hat, a gift from George W. Bush, Salva Kiir had been Garang's deputy and took over on his death.
Q 11The civil war of December 2013 began as a struggle between the president and which ex-deputy?
Riek Machar
Kiir accused him of plotting a coup. Around 400,000 people died before a 2018 power-sharing deal, and Machar was arrested again in March 2025.
Q 12The rebel army of the First Sudanese Civil War took the name Anyanya, a Madi word meaning what?
Snake venom
That war ran from 1955 to 1972 and ended with an autonomous southern region that lasted until 1983, when the second war began.
Q 13In 1898 Britain and France nearly went to war over the Upper Nile at which spot in South Sudan?
Fashoda
The town is now called Kodok. The French party was outnumbered ten to one and withdrew, leaving the Nile basin to Britain and Egypt.
Q 21About what proportion of the former united Sudan's oil reserves ended up in South Sudan?
75%
Splitting the revenue was the biggest unresolved issue at independence, along with the disputed border region of Abyei.
Q 22Which oil-rich border region's referendum on joining Sudan or South Sudan never officially happened?
Abyei
Kafia Kingi is also disputed with Sudan, and the Ilemi Triangle with Kenya. South Sudanese forces briefly seized the Heglig oilfields in 2012.
Q 23In 2011 the government approved moving the capital to which more central location?
Ramciel
John Garang reportedly wanted the move too. The idea followed the model of purpose-built capitals like Abuja, Brasília and Canberra.
Q 14Which British general served as Egypt's governor of the southern province from 1874, before dying at Khartoum?
Charles George Gordon
Samuel Baker preceded him and Emin Pasha followed. Gordon was killed by the Mahdists in 1885, two days before a relief force arrived.
Q 15Sudan was governed from 1899 to 1956 as a 'condominium' shared by Britain and which other country?
Egypt
Britain's 'Southern Policy' of 1930 ran the south separately from the Arabised north, then abruptly reversed course in 1946 without asking southerners.
Q 16Which is the largest ethnic group in South Sudan, making up around 40% of the population?
Dinka
Along with Rwanda's Tutsi they are the tallest people in Africa. President Kiir is Dinka; his rival Machar is Nuer, the second-largest group.
Q 17What is the sole official language of South Sudan?
English
Few people speak it as a first language. Juba Arabic, a creole, is the everyday lingua franca, and Swahili is being added to school curricula.
Q 18About how many languages are spoken in South Sudan?
70
Sixty are indigenous and hold constitutional status as 'national languages'. Dinka, with 1.35 million speakers, is the biggest.
Q 19Which faith do the majority of South Sudanese follow, according to Pew estimates?
Christianity
Pew put it at 60.5% Christian, 32.9% traditional religions and 6.2% Muslim. Catholics are the largest single church, and Kiir is one.
Q 20Oil provides roughly what share of the South Sudanese government's revenue?
More than 90%
Yet the crude must be pumped north through Sudan to Port Sudan on the Red Sea, a dependence that led Juba to shut off production entirely in 2012.
Q 24How many states does South Sudan have under the 2020 peace agreement?
Ten
Plus two administrative areas and Abyei's special status. Kiir had expanded the count to 28 and then 32 during the war before reverting.
Q 25The states are grouped into three historic regions: Bahr el Ghazal, Greater Upper Nile and which other?
Equatoria
Central Equatoria contains the capital. Darfur and Kordofan are regions of Sudan to the north.
Q 26In 2016 South Sudan became a full member of which regional bloc?
The East African Community
Its application to the Arab League, filed in 2014, is still pending. It also plans to join the Commonwealth.
Q 27The Boma-Badingilo landscape in South Sudan hosts the world's largest what?
Land mammal migration
Around five million white-eared kob plus gazelle, tiang and reedbuck move seasonally, a spectacle long thought lost to war until aerial surveys rediscovered it.
Q 28Which endemic antelope dominates the great migration with an estimated five million animals?
White-eared kob
The Nile lechwe is the country's other endemic antelope. The migration ranges into Ethiopia's Gambella National Park.
Q 29What does the blue triangle on South Sudan's flag contain?
A yellow star
The flag was adopted in 2005, six years before the country existed. In 2023 the government made the sky-blue triangle and upright star the only legal version.
Q 30In which year was the South Sudanese flag adopted?
2005
It came with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and had earlier been the SPLM's banner, with a slightly different design.