South of Sudan
South Sudan, officially the Republic of South Sudan, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Its capital and largest city is Juba.
South Sudan is bordered by Ethiopia to the east; Kenya to the southeast; Uganda to the south; the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the southwest; the Central African Republic to the west; and Sudan to the north.
South Sudan includes the vast swamp region of the Sudd formed by the White Nile, locally called the Bahr al Jabal.
What is now South Sudan was part of the British and Egyptian condominium of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and became part of the Republic of the Sudan when independence was achieved in 1956.
Following the First Sudanese Civil War, the Southern Sudan Autonomous Region was formed in 1972 and lasted until 1983.
A second Sudanese civil war soon developed and ended with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005.
Later that year, southern autonomy was restored when an Autonomous Government of Southern Sudan was formed. South Sudan became an independent state on 9 July 2011.
On 14 July 2011, South Sudan became a United Nations member state.
It joined the African Union on 28 July 2011.
South Sudan is one of the poorest countries with possibly the worst health situation in the world.
Where is South Sudan?
South Sudan lies between latitudes 3° and 13°N, and longitudes 24° and 36°E.
It is covered in tropical forest, swamps, and grassland. The White Nile passes through the country, passing by Juba.
South Sudan's protected area of Bandingilo National Park hosts the second-largest wildlife migration in the world.
Surveys have revealed that Boma National Park, west of the Ethiopian border, as well as the Sudd wetland and Southern National Park near the border with Congo, provided habitat for large populations of hartebeest, kob, topi, buffalo, elephants, giraffes, and lions.
South Sudan's forest reserves also provided habitat for bongo, giant forest hogs, Red River Hogs, forest elephants, chimpanzees, and forest monkeys.
Surveys begun in 2005 by WCS in partnership with the semi-autonomous government of Southern Sudan revealed that significant, though diminished wildlife populations still exist, and that, astonishingly, the huge migration of 1.3 million antelopes in the southeast is substantially intact.
Habitats in the country include grasslands, high-altitude plateaus and escarpments, wooded and grassy savannas, floodplains, and wetlands.
Associated wildlife species include the endemic white-eared kob and Nile Lechwe, as well as elephants, giraffes, Common Eland, Giant Eland, oryx, lions, African Wild Dogs, Cape Buffalo, and topi (locally called tiang).
Little is known about the white-eared kob and tiang, whose magnificent migrations were legendary before the civil war.
The Boma-Jonglei Landscape region encompasses Boma National Park, broad pasturelands and floodplains, Bandingilo National Park, and the Sudd, a vast area of swamp and seasonally flooded grasslands that includes the Zeraf Wildlife Reserve.