The Arabized (North) Sudan, which is shaped by Islam, was contrasted for a long time with the South, in which traditional African religions and Christianity predominate, which dates back to the activities of American and European missionaries in the 19th and 20th centuries. In South Sudan, therefore, mainly schools led […]

Women and gender ratio The situation of women in Sudan is characterized by severe restrictions. Participation in social life is made much more difficult for them both by culturally determined traditional structures and, since Omar Al-Bashir came to power in 1989, by a very strict interpretation of Islam and the […]

2008 census For the first time since Sudan’s independence in 1956, a census was carried out in April 2008 that included the population of the former entire Sudan. Up until then there were several counts, the last one in 1993, but the conflict region of South Sudan was always ignored. […]

Economic policy The Sudanese government, in cooperation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), launched a program in 2013agreed for modernization and market economy orientation. The program includes, among other things, the privatization of state-owned companies, the reform of the public service, a reduction in military spending, which according to the […]

Economic structure The economy of Sudan is characterized by agriculture and oil production. The country had experienced an economic boom since the end of the 1990’s due to the income from the oil sector, but only the capital region benefited from this and the peripheral regions remained excluded from economic […]

Regional relations According to estatelearning, Sudan counteracted the country’s profound political isolation by increasing its presence in regional organizations such as the African Union and the Arab League, and in recent years has attempted to break this open by moving closer to its neighboring states, to which Sudan, up to […]

United States Before al-Bashir came to power in 1989 and followed Islamist policies, Sudan was the largest recipient of US development and military aid in sub-Saharan Africa. Sudan’s foreign policy isolation began with the pursuit of an Islamist policy. US sanctions against Sudan have existed since the early 1990’s. In […]

The foreign relations of Sudan are from the years of isolation caused by the indictment of Sudan’s former president al-Bashir by the International Criminal Court (ICC), the long-standing political and, now partly repealed, economic sanctions imposed by the US and the EU and the difficult Relationship to South Sudan shaped. […]

Human rights In 2009, the International Criminal Court in The Hague (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for then Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for alleged war crimes in Darfur. In 2010 this was expanded to include genocide. Omar al-Bashir was the only incumbent head of state against whom a genocide case […]

From the coup against President al-Bashir to the interim government Audio report on the background of the protests that led to the overthrow of al-Bashir (05:48 min) The protests of the population that emerged in December 2018, triggered by an abrupt doubling of the price of bread, but accompanied by […]

In April 2015, 13.6 million eligible voters were called for the second elections in the country since 1989 to elect the new president, members of the national parliament and members of the state parliaments. The scheduling of the elections was heavily criticized by the opposition parties, as elections could not […]

General elections in Sudan were last held in 1986 before 2010. Bashir overthrew the government that emerged from these elections in 1989. In 2000 he was confirmed in office with 87% of the vote in an election that was not recognized by the opposition. In the April 2010 elections, the […]

Constitution, form of government and separation of powers Since its independence in 1956, Sudan has been looking for an equal constitutional order and a national identity. Three civil governments, two transitional governments and three military governments only managed to draw up a joint North / South constitution as a transitional […]

Background of the Civil War The civil war, which ended in early 2005, between the resource-rich but underdeveloped south and the government in the north, began before Sudan’s independence in 1956. As early as 1955, the South Sudanese Anyanya rebels were fighting for the independence of the south from the […]

Independence Day: January 01, 1956 Head of state: Abdel Fattah al-Burhan Head of government: Abdalla Hamdok Political system: Transitional Government (Sovereignty Council) Democracy Status Index (BTI): Rank 134 of 137 (2020) Corruption Index (CPI): Rank 173 of 180 (2019) Ibrahim Index of African Governance: Rank 48 of 54 (2020) In […]

Cities and Urbanization Due to the recurring droughts and turmoil of war over the past 30 years and the resulting marked rural exodus, Sudan is experiencing immense urbanization. The urbanization rate was 34.6% (HDR) in 2018. The agglomerate Khartoum, a tri-city at the confluence of the White and Blue Nile, […]

Dominated by the river system of the Nile, Sudan is the third largest country in Africa. The ethnic and cultural diversity and the struggle for resources have so far prevented the country from “nation building” in a large number of conflicts and the secession of South Sudan, which was also […]

Official name: Republic of Sudan Area: 1,886,068 km² Residents: 42.81 million (2019, World Bank) Growth of population: 2.69% per year (2020, estimated) Seat of government: Khartoum Official languages: Arabic, English Regional languages: Bedawi, Fur, Masalit et al Bilad as-Sudan – the “land of the blacks” – is based on this […]