Africa

Flag of Sudan

Sudan is the third-largest country in Africa and was the continent's largest until South Sudan seceded in 2011. Located in northeastern Africa, Sudan is home to more ancient pyramids than Egypt — the Nubian kingdoms at Meroe, Nuri, and El-Kurru have hundreds of smaller, steeper pyramids scattered across the desert. Sudan gained independence from British-Egyptian rule in 1956 and the Nile flows through the country from south to north.

CapitalKhartoum
RegionAfrica
Current flag since1970
Main coloursRed, White, Black, Green
Populationabout 48 million
Areaabout 1,886,000 km²
Flags in history6

Population and area are rounded.

What the flag of Sudan means

Red, white, black and green are the pan-Arab colours. Red recalls the struggle for independence and its martyrs, white peace and optimism, black the country's name and the flag of the Mahdist revolution of the 1880s, and green Islam and farming. The flag was adopted in 1970, replacing a blue-yellow-green tricolour used since independence in 1956.

How to recognise it

Horizontal red-white-black with a green triangle at the hoist.

Did you know?

Sudan has more ancient pyramids than Egypt — over 200 pyramids built by the Kushite kingdoms.

Easily confused with

Sudan's flag is often mixed up with these. Learn to tell them apart:

Jordan

United Arab Emirates

Yemen

Flag history of Sudan

Every flag that has flown over Sudan, from today back through time.

1970–present

Flag of Sudan

Adopted in 1970 after Gaafar Nimeiry's coup, using the pan-Arab red-white-black tricolour with a green hoist triangle, based on the Arab Liberation Flag of Egypt's 1952 revolution.

1956–1970

Independence tricolour

Adopted at independence in 1956, with blue for the Nile, yellow for the Sahara, and green for farmland.

1899–1956

Anglo-Egyptian Sudan

After Britain crushed the Mahdist State, Sudan was governed from 1899 to 1956 as the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan — nominally a joint British–Egyptian condominium, in practice run by Britain under the Union Jack and Egyptian flags. Its administration deliberately developed the Arab-Muslim north and the African-Christian south separately, planting the seeds of the civil wars that eventually split off South Sudan.

1885–1898

Mahdist State

In 1881 a Sudanese religious leader, Muhammad Ahmad, declared himself the Mahdi and led a holy war that swept away Egyptian rule — famously killing General Gordon at the fall of Khartoum in 1885. His Mahdist State, flying banners inscribed with the shahada, was the first independent Sudanese nation, until a British–Egyptian army destroyed it at Omdurman in 1898.

600–1500

Alodia

Alwa, the southern of the medieval Christian Nubian kingdoms, centred at Soba near modern Khartoum.

No flag

340–1518

Makuria

A Christian Nubian kingdom on the Nile whose archers held back the early Arab conquests for centuries.

Related historical states

Empires, kingdoms and republics that once covered part of Sudan.

1885–1899

Mahdist State

The Islamic state founded by the self-proclaimed Mahdi after his forces stormed Khartoum and killed General Gordon; its banners were covered in Arabic calligraphy.