Sudan States

Sudan is built round the Nile, and almost everything in the country is placed by how far it is from the river and which way. The state is the tier that does that, and there are eighteen of them, plus the Abyei Area on the border with South Sudan.

The quiz: Name to place, on the map
Grouped by: Five parts of the country, an unofficial cut
In the game: 19 states

Start

What you are looking at

The states of Sudan, and the Abyei Area. Abyei is administered jointly with South Sudan and is neither a state nor in one, so it is drawn as a piece of its own, small and in the south, between West and South Kordofan.

The names tell you most of the layout. The five Darfur states fill the west, and the three Kordofan states the middle south. The Nile runs through Khartoum, and the states along it, River Nile and Northern, are long thin pieces of desert that reach the Egyptian border. The Red Sea state is the coast, and Kassala and Gedaref lie between it and the Ethiopian border.

The groups are not an official classification. Sudan has no tier between the state and the country, so the quiz cuts them into Darfur, Kordofan, the centre, the east and the north, to let you drill it a piece at a time. The states are the Sudan Localities grouped, so the borders of the two maps match exactly.

How to place one

Start with Khartoum. It is a small state at the junction of the two Niles, and every other state is placed relative to it.
Follow the Nile north. River Nile is the first state beyond Khartoum, and Northern, the largest of the long states, runs on to the Egyptian border.
Read the west as Darfur. Five states, with North Darfur the large one on the Libyan and Chadian border and South Darfur the most populated.
Read the south as Kordofan. North Kordofan is the big plain, and West and South Kordofan lie below it, with Abyei in between.
Leave the east for last. Kassala, Gedaref and Red Sea are the three on the Eritrean and Ethiopian side, and Blue Nile is the finger south of Sennar.

Every state, by group

Darfur5 states: Central Darfur, East Darfur, North Darfur, South Darfur, West Darfur
Centre5 states: Blue Nile, Gezira, Khartoum, Sennar, White Nile
Kordofan4 states: Abyei Area, North Kordofan, South Kordofan, West Kordofan
North2 states: Northern, River Nile
East3 states: Gedaref, Kassala, Red Sea

Worked examples

Khartoum

The capital

Khartoum is the smallest of the big states, at the meeting of the Blue and the White Nile, and holds the capital, Omdurman and Bahri. It is small on the map, so the quiz gives it a tap area.

Northern

The one that reaches Egypt

Northern is the long desert state along the Nile bend, from Dongola to the Egyptian border, and the largest state by area.

Abyei Area

The one that is not a state

The Abyei Area is a disputed pocket on the South Sudan border, held under a joint arrangement. It is drawn as the file draws it, and kept as its own piece rather than folded into a Kordofan state.

Frequently asked questions

How many states does Sudan have?

Eighteen. The quiz also draws the Abyei Area, which is not a state, as a nineteenth piece, because the boundary file keeps it separate.

Where do the groups come from?

They are an unofficial cut into five parts of the map, so you can drill a piece at a time. Sudan itself has no tier between the state and the country.