Sudan is a country in northeastern Africa, bordered by the Red Sea and crossed by the Nile River, where the Blue Nile and White Nile meet at the capital, Khartoum. It is home to one of Africa’s oldest urban civilizations, the ancient Kingdom of Kush, and since April 2023 it has also been the site of a devastating civil war between the national army and a paramilitary force. With a population of roughly 51.7 million, Sudan sits at a historic crossroads between North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and the Sahel.

Where Is Sudan Located?

Sudan lies at the southern edge of the Sahara in northeastern Africa. It borders Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, and Libya to the northwest. Covering roughly 1.86 million square kilometers, it is among the largest countries on the continent. The capital, Khartoum, sits at the point where the Blue Nile, flowing from Ethiopia, joins the White Nile, flowing from the Great Lakes region, to form the main Nile that continues north through Egypt to the Mediterranean.

Geography of Sudan

Most of Sudan is flat or gently rolling desert and semi-desert. The Nubian Desert stretches across the northeast, between the Nile and the Red Sea coast, while the Sahara extends into the west. Rainfall and vegetation increase toward the south, giving way to savanna. Isolated highlands break up the terrain, including the Marrah Mountains in the west (Darfur) and the Nuba Mountains in the south-central region. Port Sudan, on the Red Sea coast, is the country’s main maritime outlet. The Nile and its tributaries remain the backbone of settlement, agriculture, and transportation, much as they have been for thousands of years.

A Brief History of Sudan

Sudan’s Nile valley was the heartland of the Kingdom of Kush, an African civilization that flourished from roughly the 8th century BC to the 4th century AD. Kush’s rulers built royal cities and pyramid fields at Napata, Meroe, and the religious center of Naqa, leaving Sudan with more pyramids than Egypt, even though they are far less visited. UNESCO inscribed the Archaeological Sites of the Island of Meroe as a World Heritage Site in 2011, recognizing it as the heartland of this ancient kingdom.

In the modern era, Sudan was ruled jointly by Britain and Egypt as the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan from 1899 until it gained independence on January 1, 1956. The following decades were marked by two prolonged civil wars rooted largely in tension between the Arab, Muslim-majority north and the more ethnically and religiously diverse south. The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement between Sudan’s government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement ended the second civil war and set the stage for a referendum on southern independence. In January 2011, nearly 99 percent of voters in the south chose secession, and South Sudan became an independent country on July 9, 2011, taking a large share of Sudan’s oil reserves with it.

The Civil War Since 2023

Sudan’s recent history has been dominated by renewed conflict. Fighting broke out in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary force, and has continued for years since. The United Nations describes it as one of the world’s most severe humanitarian emergencies: by 2025, more than 30 million people needed humanitarian assistance and over 9 million had been displaced inside Sudan, making it the largest internal displacement crisis in the world. Large numbers of people have also fled across borders into Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya, South Sudan, Uganda, and the Central African Republic. Accounts of the fighting’s causes, conduct, and consequences remain contested by the parties involved, and this article does not take a position on responsibility for the conflict; the figures above come from UN humanitarian reporting rather than from either side of the war.

Government and Economy

Sudan has been governed by a military-led transitional authority since 2021, and that authority has itself been contested and fragmented by the war between the army and the Rapid Support Forces. Because the political situation remains unsettled and fast-changing, this article does not name individual current officeholders.

The war has been economically ruinous. Real GDP contracted by an estimated 13.5 percent in 2024 before a modest 1.2 percent rebound in 2025, according to the African Development Bank, while annual inflation stayed above 150 percent that year. The World Bank put Sudan’s total GDP at about 60.2 billion dollars in 2025, with GDP per capita near 1,165 dollars, among the lowest in the region. Poverty has risen sharply: the African Development Bank estimates that 71 percent of Sudanese lived in poverty in 2025, up from 36 percent before the war, meaning roughly 23 million people. Life expectancy stood at 67 years in 2024, and about two-thirds of the population had access to electricity that year. Agriculture remains central to the economy and employment, and Sudan is one of the world’s leading producers of gum arabic, a natural resin used in food, pharmaceutical, and industrial products worldwide.

Culture and People

Sudan’s population includes Sudanese Arabs, who make up the largest share, alongside the Beja, Fur, Nuba, and many other ethnic communities, especially in Darfur and the southern borderlands. Arabic and English are the country’s official languages, and Sunni Islam is the predominant religion, though Sudan’s population is ethnically and culturally diverse, reflecting its position between the Arab world and sub-Saharan Africa. Music, oral poetry, and craft traditions across Sudan’s regions draw on both Arab and African influences, and Nubian identity remains strong along the Nile north of Khartoum, where communities trace their heritage directly to the ancient kingdoms of Kush and Nubia.

What Is Sudan Known For?

Globally, Sudan is best known for two very different things. The first is its ancient heritage: the pyramids and temples of Meroe, Naqa, and Gebel Barkal stand as evidence of the Kingdom of Kush, a civilization that once rivaled and, for a period, ruled Egypt. The second is the scale of its recent humanitarian crisis, which the United Nations has repeatedly flagged as one of the largest displacement emergencies anywhere in the world. UNESCO has also warned that the war itself threatens Sudan’s archaeological heritage directly, reporting looting and damage at the National Museum of Sudan in Khartoum and heightened risk to World Heritage sites, including Meroe and the Napatan region around Gebel Barkal.

Why Sudan Matters

Sudan’s location gives it outsized strategic weight: it links the Nile corridor connecting Central and East Africa to Egypt and the Mediterranean, and its Red Sea coastline sits along one of the world’s busiest shipping routes. Its ancient history also matters well beyond its borders, since the Kingdom of Kush is a central chapter in the story of African civilization and of Nile Valley archaeology more broadly. At the same time, the current conflict has made Sudan a focal point for international humanitarian response, regional diplomacy, and concern over the protection of cultural heritage in wartime, giving the country an importance that reaches far beyond its own population.

Key Takeaways

• Sudan is a northeastern African country on the Nile and Red Sea, with Khartoum as its capital at the junction of the Blue Nile and White Nile.
• It was the heartland of the ancient Kingdom of Kush, whose pyramids at Meroe were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2011.
• Sudan gained independence from joint British and Egyptian rule on January 1, 1956.
• South Sudan separated from Sudan in 2011 after a referendum in which nearly 99 percent of voters chose independence.
• Civil war between Sudan’s army and the Rapid Support Forces since April 2023 has displaced more than 9 million people within the country, the world’s largest internal displacement crisis.
• The war has driven poverty to an estimated 71 percent of the population in 2025 and placed Sudan’s archaeological heritage at heightened risk.

Sources

• World Bank Open Data: Sudan, data.worldbank.org/country/sudan
• UNESCO, Sudan: UNESCO calls for the protection of the World Heritage Site of the Island of Meroe, unesco.org
• UNESCO, Sudan: UNESCO steps up its actions as the conflict enters its third year, unesco.org
• United Nations News, Sudan war leaves millions hungry and displaced as health system nears collapse, news.un.org
• United Nations News, Fighting deepens needs and fuels further displacement in Sudan, news.un.org
• UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Sudan, unocha.org/sudan
• UNHCR, Sudan Situation, Operational Data Portal, data.unhcr.org
• African Development Bank, Sudan Economic Outlook, afdb.org
• International Monetary Fund, Sudan and the IMF, imf.org
• United Nations Peacekeeping, Referendum in Southern Sudan (UNMIS), peacekeeping.un.org
• UCLA International Institute, African Studies Center, Sudan, international.ucla.edu
• Encyclopaedia Britannica, Sudan (tertiary check of uncontroversial facts), britannica.com

Editorially reviewed by Specialty Digest Editorial TeamLast reviewed October 4, 2026Researched and drafted with AI assistanceReport an issue