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Sudan, officially Republic of the Sudan, republic (1995 est. pop. 30,120,000), 967,494 sq mi (2,505,813 sq km), the largest country in Africa, bordered by Egypt (N), the Red Sea (NE), Eritrea and Ethiopia (E), Kenya, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (S), the Central African Republic and Chad (W), and Libya (NW). The principal cities are Khartoum (the capital) and Omdurman. The most notable geographical feature is the Nile R., which, with its tributaries, flows through eastern Sudan from south to north. Rainfall in Sudan diminishes from south to north; thus the southern part of the country is characterized by swampland and rain forest, the central region by savanna and grassland, and the north by desert and semidesert. There are mountains in the northeast, south, center, and west; the highest point is Kinyetti (10,456 ft/3,187 m), in the southeast. Agriculture, mostly of a subsistence nature, dominates the economy. Long-staple cotton, the principal cash crop, is raised in the irrigated Al Gezira region. Other crops include sesame, sorghum, millet, peanuts, dates, and sugarcane. Cotton, sesame, gum arabic (much of the world's production), livestock, and peanuts are exported. The small mining industry extracts chromite, copper and manganese ores, gypsum, and gold. Industry is largely devoted to the processing of agricultural products. The population is divided into three main groups: northerners, who are Muslim and speak Arabic (the official language); westerners, largely Muslim and originally (20th cent.) from W Africa; and southerners, who follow traditional beliefs mostly and speak Nilotic languages. There is a Christian minority in the south.
History
Northeast Sudan, called Nubia in ancient times, was colonized by Egypt about 2000 BC and was ruled by the Cush kingdom from the 8th cent. BC to the 4th cent AD Most of Nubia was converted to Coptic Christianity in the 6th cent., but by the 15th cent. Islam prevailed. In 1821 the north was conquered by Egypt, but a revolt by the nationalist Mahdi in 1881 forced an Egyptian withdrawal. In the 1890s an Anglo-Egyptian force under Herbert Kitchener destroyed the theocratic Mahdist state, and in 1899 most of Sudan came under the joint rule of Egypt and Britain (with Britain exercising actual control). Independence was achieved in 1956. In 1955 the animist southerners, fearing that the new nation would be dominated by the Muslim north, began a civil war that lasted 17 years. In 1972 Pres. Muhammad Gaafar al-Nimeiry ended the war by granting the south a measure of autonomy. However, his imposition of Islamic law on the entire country in 1983 reopened the conflict, and close to 2 million have died since, many from starvation. Nimeiry was deposed by a military coup in 1986. A short-lived civilian government was overthrown in 1989 by Lt. Gen. Omar Hassan al-Bashir; he officially became president in 1993 and was elected to the post in 1996. Bashir's government reinstituted Islamic law, banned opposition parties, and jailed dissidents. Throughout the 1990s the army mounted offensives against the rebels in S Sudan; several cease-fires were announced to allow the distribution of food to famine victims, but they did not hold. In recent years Sudan has supported Muslim fundamentalists internationally. In 1998 U.S. missiles destroyed a pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum that was suspected of manufacturing chemical weapon compounds to be used in terrorist activities, but international investigators were unable to find evidence to support the charges. In late 1999 a power struggle developed between Bashir and the speaker of the parliament, Hassan al-Turabi. Bashir dissolved parliament and in 2000 also secured his control of the ruling National Congress party. In Dec. 2000 he was reelected president, and his party swept the parlimentary elections; the opposition boycotted the vote. Turabi was put under house arrest in Feb. 2001 after signing an agreement with the rebels calling for peaceful resistance to Bashir's government. The government and rebels agreed in July 2002 to a framework for peace that called for autonomy for the south and a referendum on independence after six years, and a truce was signed in October. Despite some cease-fire violations, talks continued in 2003.
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