Country Information
| Official Name: | Sudan |
| Capital: | Khartoum |
| Area: | 1,886,068 km² |
| Languages: | Arabic, English |
| Independence: | 1956-01-01 |
| Leader: | Abdel Fattah al-Burhan |
About Sudan
Sudan is located in the northern band of the African continent, bordering the Mediterranean Sea and shaped by the Sahara Desert to the south. Its capital is Khartoum, and it covers roughly 1,886,068 square kilometres. The population of about 48.7 million makes it one of 6 countries that make up North Africa. The country marks its modern statehood from 1956.
North African economies have historically been linked closely with Mediterranean Europe and the Middle East through migration, trade and energy exports. The region is overwhelmingly Arabic-speaking, with Berber languages widely used as well, and Islam is the dominant religion. Hydrocarbon exports, agriculture in the coastal strip, and tourism are the conventional pillars of the regional economy. Within that setting, The working official languages are arabic and english, and the legal-tender currency is the Sudanese Pound (SDG) (see Africa's currency arrangements).
The figures above are sourced from World Bank, IMF, UN agency and national statistics-office releases. Reported nominal GDP for Sudan is about US$35 billion. Population growth is currently estimated at about 2.4% per year, which influences how quickly the labour force, school cohorts and urban demand shift over a decade. The longer-form note on what growth rate hides is on reading African demographic data. At an urbanisation rate of about 36%, Sudan is still predominantly rural, with cities growing faster than the countryside. Life expectancy at birth is reported at 66.1 years, and the adult literacy rate at about 61% — figures that summarise decades of investment in health systems and basic education.
How to read these figures
Country indicators on Africa Center are point-in-time estimates that are revised when new census or survey data is published. GDP is reported here as nominal US dollars at current exchange rates, which is the format most widely used by international institutions for cross-country comparison; for the difference between this and the purchasing-power-parity variant, and why GDP rankings reorder between releases, see reading African economic data. Per-capita figures divide GDP by population and are most useful when read alongside the absolute total. Definitions for every indicator are in the glossary; the rules we follow when sources disagree are written up in the methodology.
For the full regional context — neighbouring economies, shared languages, regional organisations — see the North Africa overview. To compare Sudan with other countries on the continent, browse the full country directory or open the interactive map.
Last reviewed: 28 April 2026. Figures are revised when underlying source organisations publish new releases.