A country in north-east Africa, bordered by the Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Central African Republic.

Physical

South Sudan is bisected by the White Nile, which forms the Sudd swamp—over 100,000 sq km in area—in the centre of the country. There are uplands on both sides on the river plain; these rise to significant mountains on the Ugandan border.

Economy

South Sudan is poor and underdeveloped following decades of civil conflict when it was part of Sudan. Subsistence agriculture occupies most of the population, with about half living in poverty. Principal crops include sorghum, maize, rice, millet, and wheat. The only significant industry is the production and export of crude oil, which provides almost all the government’s revenue. South Sudan's economy has been badly damaged by the suspension of oil production in 2012, while foreign oil companies have suspended new developments and withdrawn their technical staff because of civil war.

History

South Sudan came into existence in 2011 after the ten southern provinces of Sudan voted in a referendum to secede. This had been provided for in the peace agreement of 2005 that ended the Sudanese civil war between the Arabic Muslim north and the African Christian south, and the new state was immediately recognized. Its subsequent history has been turbulent. The previous regional government under President Salva Kiir Mayardit became the government of the new state and was not universally accepted. These political differences combined with ethnic tensions to produce a state of endemic violence in much of the new country. A number of disputes with Sudan remained unresolved, including the precise line of the border and how to share oil revenues, and these led to armed clashes. Oil production was shut down in 2012 for over a year following a dispute with Sudan over trans-shipment fees (all of South Sudan’s oil is exported via a pipeline to Port Sudan). At the end of 2013 a power struggle between President Kiir and a former Vice-President, Riek Machar, led to ethnic fighting between Dinka and Nuer that developed into full-scale civil war. By late 2017 the conflict had killed hundreds of thousands of people, displaced millions within the country and into neighbouring countries, and led to famine. A number of UN initiatives to bring peace have failed.