The Sudan Handbook

40

2. Land & Water

Justin Willis, omeR egemi

& PhiliP WinteR

The Anglo-Egyptian Condominium of Sudan was the largest of the

political units created by imperialism in Africa. It has grown and shrunk

a little over time, gaining Darfur in   1916     and losing a corner to Italian-

ruled Libya in 1934, taking its overall size to just below one million square

miles (2.4 million square kilometres). But the territory controlled, at

least nominally, by the Sudanese state remained – up until  2011     – larger

than that ruled by any other African government.

The Condominium was divided for most of its existence into nine

provinces. Six of these came to be considered as ‘northern’, and the

other three as ‘southern’. These provinces were subdivided in the 1970s,

restored briefly as states in a major administrative restructuring in 1991,

then divided again in 1994, in a further restructuring which produced

26   states. (One of these, West Kordofan, was subsequently merged

into two of the others). Although Sudan has had a state system for two

decades, it is not uncommon to hear people using the old system of nine

provinces.

The terrain covered by these states and provinces ranges from the

Nubian desert in the far north – the easternmost extension of the Sahara,

where there is virtually no rainfall – to the swamps and forests a thousand

miles (1600 kilometres) southward, where up to  200  centimetres of

seasonal rain a year swells rivers, brings floods and feeds a permanent

swamp in the central southern plains. In the far north, along the Twenty-

second Parallel, Sudan borders Egypt; in the south, around the Fourth

Parallel, just north of the equator, it marches with the countries of east

The Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors and^ central^ Africa.

(www.riftvalley.net).