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50 free Sudan trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Sudan was Africa's largest country until 2011 and it still has more pyramids than Egypt. This quiz runs from the earliest known war in the world at Jebel Sahaba to the civil war that broke out in Khartoum in 2023, by way of the Kingdom of Kush and its black pharaohs, the Christian kingdoms of Nubia that fought off the Arabs, the Funj and Darfur sultanates, the Mahdi's siege of Khartoum, Kitchener at Omdurman, the Anglo-Egyptian condominium and independence on New Year's Day 1956. Easy questions ask for the capital, the river that forms there and the country to the north; the harder ones want the highest point, the meaning of the country's name, the dust storm with its own Arabic word, the year Sharia was dropped, the Sufi group behind the Umma party and the general who won the 1970 Africa Cup of Nations at home. There is also Omar al-Bashir, Darfur and the Janjaweed, the 2019 sit-in, the RSF, the flag that changed after a coup and the gold that now props up the economy. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the country, its cities and its history, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The river that joins the White Nile at Sudan's capital is named after which colour?
Blue
It rises in Ethiopia and runs nearly 800 km through Sudan. One folk etymology says 'Khartoum' means 'elephant's trunk', after the strip of land between the rivers.
Q 02Which country lies directly north of Sudan?
Egypt
Lake Nubia straddles the border. Egypt ruled Sudan in the 19th century and shared sovereignty with Britain from 1899 to 1956.
Q 03Sudan's coastline lies on which body of water?
The Red Sea
The 853 km coast includes Port Sudan, the outlet for South Sudan's oil pipeline and the country's main harbour.
Q 04Sudan was the largest country in Africa until which event in 2011?
Secession of the south
It is now third, behind Algeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and lost about three-quarters of its oilfields in the split.
Q 05In which year did Sudan become independent?
1956
The Egyptian and British flags came down on 1 January and prime minister Ismail al-Azhari raised a new blue, yellow and green tricolour.
Q 06From 1899 until independence, Sudan was governed as a 'condominium' shared by Britain and which country?
Egypt
In practice it was run as a British colony. Egypt's 1952 revolutionaries, one of them half-Sudanese, gave up their claim to speed independence.
Q 07The name Sudan comes from the Arabic bilad as-sudan, meaning what?
Land of the Blacks
Ancient Egyptians called the region Ta Seti, 'land of the bow', after its famed Nubian archers.
Q 08The Kingdom of Kush was centred first at Napata and later at which city between the Fifth and Sixth Cataracts?
Meroë
Its iron industry earned it the nickname 'the Birmingham of Africa'. Kerma was the capital of an even earlier kingdom, destroyed by Thutmose I.
Q 09In the 8th century BC, Kushite kings conquered Egypt and ruled as pharaohs of which dynasty?
The 25th
King Kashta began the conquest and Piye completed it. The 'black pharaohs' ruled for nearly a century until the Assyrians drove them out.
Q 10In the 1830s the Italian treasure-hunter Giuseppe Ferlini demolished more than 40 of what at Meroë?
Pyramids
He found gold jewellery in the tomb of Queen Amanishakheto, but nobody in Europe believed such work could come from sub-Saharan Africa until Berlin and Munich bought it.
Q 11The site of Jebel Sahaba in Sudan is famous as evidence of the earliest known what, around 11,500 BC?
War
Dozens of skeletons in a cemetery near the Egyptian border bore wounds from arrows and spears.
Q 12What did the Christian Nubian kingdom of Makuria manage in 641 and 652 that few states did?
It repelled the Arab armies
The result was a unique non-aggression pact with an annual exchange of gifts that kept Nubia independent for centuries.
Q 13In medieval Christian Nubia, who was the rightful heir to the throne?
The son of the king's sister
Q 21The general who went on to rule Sudan for three decades seized power in which year?
1989
His bloodless coup came on 30 June. He appointed himself president in 1993 and was the only legal candidate in the 1996 election.
Q 22Which terrorist leader did Sudan host in the 1990s, earning it a US state-sponsor listing?
Osama bin Laden
Speaker Hassan al-Turabi invited him. After the 1998 embassy bombings the US bombed the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum, wrongly believing it made chemical weapons.
Q 23The Darfur war led the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for whom?
Omar al-Bashir
Succession was matrilineal, and women could own land, be educated and endow churches. The culture has been described as 'Afro-Byzantine'.
Q 14Which Islamic sultanate, founded in 1504, dominated central Sudan from Sennar until the 19th century?
The Funj
Its kings kept un-Islamic customs like divine kingship and drinking alcohol into the 18th century. The Keira sultans ruled Darfur to the west.
Q 15Which ruler of Egypt sent his son to conquer northern Sudan in 1821?
Muhammad Ali
Technically an Ottoman governor, he ran Egypt as his own. The Turco-Egyptian regime that followed was known in Sudan as the Turkiyah.
Q 16The leader whose revolt took Khartoum in 1885 claimed which messianic title?
The Mahdi
Muhammad Ahmad, the 'Guided One' of Islamic prophecy, died of typhus six months after taking the city, and his successor took the title Khalifa.
Q 17Which British general was killed when the Mahdi's forces stormed Khartoum in January 1885?
Charles Gordon
'Chinese Gordon' had been sent to evacuate the city and instead held it for almost a year. His death made him a Victorian martyr.
Q 18Kitchener's reconquest of Sudan culminated in which battle on 2 September 1898?
Omdurman
Maxim guns cut down some 10,000 Mahdists in five hours for 48 British dead. A young Winston Churchill rode in the cavalry charge.
Q 19According to Churchill, what did Kitchener take as a trophy from the Mahdi's tomb?
His head, in a kerosene can
The tomb in Omdurman was later restored and is a major landmark. The Mahdi's descendants still lead the Umma party.
Q 20Colonel Gaafar Nimeiry seized power in a coup in which year?
1969
He survived a Communist counter-coup in 1971, signed the Addis Ababa peace with the south in 1972 and imposed Sharia in 1983.
He was the first sitting head of state indicted by the ICC. Arab militias known as the Janjaweed were accused of the worst atrocities.
Q 24What was the name of the horse-riding Arab militias accused of atrocities in Darfur?
Janjaweed
They were later formalised as the Rapid Support Forces, the paramilitary that went to war with the army in 2023.
Q 25Bashir was finally overthrown by the army in April 2019 after months of protests sparked by what?
A tripling of bread and fuel prices
Protests began on 19 December 2018 amid 70% inflation. A sit-in outside army headquarters ended with the Khartoum massacre of 3 June 2019.
Q 26Which economist led Sudan's 2019 transitional government as prime minister until an October 2021 coup?
Abdalla Hamdok
His cabinet included Sudan's first female foreign minister and first Coptic Christian minister. He resigned for good in January 2022.
Q 27The civil war that erupted in Khartoum on 15 April 2023 pits the army against which paramilitary force?
The Rapid Support Forces
The RSF grew out of the Janjaweed and is led by Hemedti. By 2024 the UN counted more than 8.6 million people forced from their homes.
Q 28In which year did Sudan drop Islam as state religion and Sharia law to become secular?
2020
Sharia had applied since 1983. Under the old public-order law women could be flogged for wearing trousers.
Q 29Sudan's red, white and black flag dates from 1970. What did the 1956 flag look like?
Blue, yellow and green stripes
The colours stood for the Nile, the desert and farmland. Nimeiry replaced it with a design based on Egypt's Arab Liberation Flag.
Q 30What is Sudan's highest point?
The Deriba Caldera
It is a volcanic crater 3,042 metres up in the Marrah Mountains of Darfur, holding two lakes.