South Sudan 🇸🇸

South Sudan is a sovereign country in Middle Africa, in the wider region of Africa. The long form of the name is Republic of South Sudan. Juba is the capital.

Around 11.9 million people live there, placing it 81st of 250 by population — between Tunisia above it and Belgium below. Among the 10 entries in Middle Africa it ranks 5th by area and 5th by population.

By land area it covers 619,745 km², which ranks it 45th of the 250 countries and territories in this dataset — just behind the Central African Republic and just ahead of Ukraine. That makes it a little larger than Kenya.

South Sudan has no coastline of its own, so every ship-borne import and export crosses somebody else's border first. The good news is that the sea is only one frontier away: DR Congo, Kenya and Sudan have coastline, which makes them the obvious routes for freight heading to a port.

That geography has practical consequences. Landlocked countries carry higher freight costs than coastal ones because goods change hands, transport mode and jurisdiction more often, and because a neighbour's road, rail or customs problem becomes South Sudan's problem too. It is also why transit agreements with bordering states, and access to their ports, tend to matter more in South Sudan's foreign policy than the distance on a map would suggest.

Of the countries on South Sudan's borders, the Central African Republic, Ethiopia and Uganda are landlocked as well, so a route in that direction only moves the problem along. The remaining borders are the ones that lead, eventually, to salt water.

Coastal countries on the border:

• 🇨🇩 DR Congo
• 🇰🇪 Kenya
• 🇸🇩 Sudan

Plotted on a globe it falls at 7.0° north, 30.0° east, which puts it in the northern hemisphere, roughly 779 km from the equator, in what geographers would call the equatorial belt.

Follow that same latitude east or west and you reach Venezuela, Ivory Coast and Guyana — places that share its distance from the equator but little else.

Its land neighbours number 6: the Central African Republic, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan and Uganda. The largest of them by area is DR Congo, while the most populous is Ethiopia. Together those neighbours hold about 403.6 million people.

It has no sea coast of its own. That is true of 45 of the 250 entries here, and it means every shipment in or out has to cross someone else's border first. 3 of its neighbours, the Central African Republic, Ethiopia and Uganda, are landlocked too. You can see the full picture on the landlocked countries page.

Population divided by land area gives roughly 19 people per square kilometre, which makes it less crowded than the typical entry on this list. Half the entries in this dataset fall below roughly 90 per square kilometre.

The one official language is English. English is one of the widely shared official languages here, listed by 90 other entries including American Samoa, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda and Australia.

People from South Sudan are called South Sudanese.

Inside Africa it places 32nd of 59 by population, and it accounts for 5.3% of everyone living in Middle Africa.

Zoom in from the world to Middle Africa and South Sudan sits 5th of 10 by population and 5th by area. Its immediate company in that ordering is Chad just above and Congo just below, which is a more honest comparison set than a global league table.

DR Congo is the largest of the group by population, and every entry in Middle Africa has its own page here if you want to work through the whole neighbourhood rather than one country at a time.

• 🇹🇩 Chad
• 🇨🇬 Congo
• 🇨🇩 DR Congo

Money there is the South Sudanese pound (£, SSP). No other entry in this dataset uses it, so the currency is specific to South Sudan.

Juba is the seat of government and the answer most quizzes are looking for.

Websites there use the .ss domain. The international dialling code is +211. Its ISO codes are ss and SSD, which is what most databases and flag files use.

As a sovereign state it is among the 193 UN members listed here. The other 57 entries are territories, dependencies or observers, which is why totals on this site run to 250 rather than the familiar 195.

The South Sudanese pound (SSP) is used only in South Sudan among the 250 entries on this site. Its own currency is one of the clearest markers of an economy that sets its own monetary policy rather than importing somebody else's.

Language reaches wider still. English is listed for 91 entries here, South Sudan among them, so a visitor who speaks it can be understood across a large part of the map. Shared language tends to outlive the empires, trade routes and migrations that spread it, which is why the linguistic map and the political one rarely line up.