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Updates: 

Paraskevas Renesis and Fabien Antoine sent me links to sources [5] and [6], showing that South Sudan is getting 28 new states. The sources list the counties composing each of the new states. Comparing those lists to the counties I already knew about, I find that at least nine new counties have been created. All but three of the existing counties have been assigned to the new states. Those three include one each in the states of Jungoli, Upper Nile, and West Bahr-al-Ghazal. In other words, all of the known counties in the other seven old states have been reassigned to new states. Is there anything left of the seven old states? To add to the confusion, around the end of 2014, rebel leader Riek Machar proclaimed the dissolution of the ten states and the formation of twenty-one new ones, and appointed governors for the 21. This change was apparently never officially recognized. I will wait until the situation clarifies before making an update.

ISO 3166-2 Newsletter II-3 is dated 2011-12-15. It assigns new two-letter codes to the states of South Sudan. For the two-digit codes they had when they were part of Sudan, see the Sudan article.

On 2011-09-02, the government of South Sudan announced that the capital would be moved from Juba to Ramciel, in Lakes state. A federal territory will probably be created around it, separate from Lakes. The move is expected to take several years.

Update 5 to Geopolitical Entities and Codes, the successor to FIPS PUB 10-4, was issued on 2011-08-31. It has codes for the states, based on their new country code. Update 3 was issued on 2011-02-28. It changes the spelling of a state name.

Newsletter VI-10 is an update to ISO 3166-1, dated 2011-08-09. It assigns country code SS to South Sudan.

Abyei is still under dispute. At present writing, it is still part of Southern Kordofan in Sudan. If it becomes part of South Sudan, it will probably merge with Warap.

Country overview: 

Short name	SOUTH SUDAN
ISO code	SS
FIPS code	OD
Language	Arabic (ar)
Time zone	+3
Capital	Juba

 

South Sudan split from Sudan in 2011. For its previous history, see the Sudan article.

Other names of country: 

1. Danish: Sydsudan
2. Dutch: Zuid-Soedan
3. English: Republic of South Sudan (formal)
4. Finnish: Etelä-Sudan
5. French: République f du Soudan m du Sud (formal), Sud-Soudan m
6. German: Republik f Südsudan (formal), Südsudan m
7. Icelandic: Suður-Súdan
8. Italian: Sudan m del Sud
9. Norwegian: Sør-Sudan
10. Portuguese: Sudão m do Sul, Sudão Meridional
11. Russian: Южный Судан
12. Spanish: Sudán del Sur, República f de Sudán m del Sur (formal)
13. Swedish: Sydsudan
14. Turkish: Güney Sudan Cumhuriyeti (formal)

Origin of name: 

southern part of Sudan

Primary subdivisions: 

South Sudan is divided into 10 wilayat (states).

State	HASC	ISO	FIPS	Population	Area(km.²)	Area(mi.²)	Capital	Region
Central Equatoria	SS.BG	EC	OD01	1,103,592	22,956	8,863	Juba	Equatoria
East Equatoria	SS.EE	EE	OD02	906,126	82,542	31,870	Torit	Equatoria
Jungoli	SS.JG	JG	OD03	1,358,602	122,479	47,289	Bor	Upper Nile
Lakes	SS.EB	LK	OD04	695,730	40,235	15,535	Rumbek	Bahr el Ghazal
North Bahr-al-Ghazal	SS.NB	BN	OD05	720,898	33,558	12,957	Awil	Bahr el Ghazal
Unity	SS.WH	UY	OD06	585,801	35,956	13,883	Bantio	Upper Nile
Upper Nile	SS.UN	NU	OD07	964,353	77,773	30,028	Malakal	Upper Nile
Warap	SS.WR	WR	OD08	972,928	31,027	11,980	Kuacjok	Bahr el Ghazal
West Bahr-al-Ghazal	SS.WB	BW	OD09	333,431	93,900	36,255	Wau	Bahr el Ghazal
West Equatoria	SS.WE	EW	OD10	619,029	79,319	30,625	Yambio	Equatoria
10 states				8,260,490	619,745	239,285
HASC: Hierarchical administrative subdivision codes. ISO: Codes from ISO 3166-2. For full identification in a global context, prefix "SS-" to the code (ex: SS-UY represents Unity). FIPS: Codes from FIPS PUB 10-4. Population: 2008-04-22 census (source [4]). Area: Source: various Sudanese embassy Web pages. Region: Region containing this state before 1994.

Further subdivisions:

See the Counties of South Sudan page.

The states are subdivided into counties. The regions (a.k.a. divisions) are still recognized, although not functional now.

Territorial extent: 

There is a triangle adjacent to the Kenya border that is administered by Kenya but part of South Sudan (Eastern Equatoria state).

The UN LOCODE page  for South Sudan lists locations in the country, some of them with their latitudes and longitudes, some with their ISO 3166-2 codes for their subdivisions. This information can be put together to approximate the territorial extent of subdivisions.

Origins of names: 

1. Bahr-al-Ghazal: Arabic "river of the gazelles"
2. Equatoria: area closest to the Equator, although nowhere farther south than 3° N. latitude

Change history: 

1. 2011-07-09: South Sudan split from Sudan. HASC codes for the states changed from SD.xx to SS.xx.

Other names of subdivisions: 

The article al is sometimes transliterated el. Before certain consonants, it is usually assimilated, as in Ash Shamaliyah (instead of Al Shamaliyah).

Provinces:

1. Equatoria: Al Istiwā'ī, Al Istiwā'īyah (Arabic); Equatória (Portuguese)
2. Upper Nile: A`ālī an Nīl (Arabic); Alto Nilo (Portuguese)

States:

1. Central Equatoria: Bahr el Gabel, Bahr-al-Jabal (obsolete)
2. East Equatoria: Al Istiwā'īyah ash Sharqīyah, Sharq al Istiwā'īyah (Arabic); Eastern Equatoria (variant); Équatoria oriental (French)
3. Jungoli: Jonglei, Jonglie, Jonqley, Junglei, Junqalī (variant); Jongley (French)
4. Lakes: Al Buhairat, Al Buḥayrah, Buheirat, El Boheirat, El Buhayrat (variant); El Buheyrah (French)
5. North Bahr-al-Ghazal: North Bahr-al-Gazal, North Bahr el Ghazal, Northern Bahr el-Ghazal (variant); Shamal Bahr al Ghazal (Arabic)
6. Unity: Al-Wahdah, Wahda (variant)
7. Upper Nile: a`Ālī an Nīl (Arabic); Nil supérieur (French)
8. Warap: Warab, Warrab, Warrap (variant)
9. West Bahr-al-Ghazal: Bahr al-Ghazāl al Gharbīyah, Gharb Bahr al-Ghazāl (Arabic); Bahr el-Ghazal occidental (French); Western Bahr el Ghazal (variant)
10. West Equatoria: Al Istiwā'īyah al Gharbīyah, Gharb al Istiwā'īyah (Arabic); Équatoria occidental (French); Western Equatoria (variant)

Sources: 

1. [1] Population , from Central Bureau of Statistics report on the 2008 census, has proleptic region populations back to 1973. Totals don't quite match state and region figures, probably because of rounding.
2. [2] UNMIS CPA Monitor had an article on the South Sudan agreement (http://home.planet.nl/~ende0098/Articles/20070500.html, dead link, retrieved 2007).
3. [3] NileBuffalo Gazette  says, "Kapoeta is the capital of [East Equatoria] but currently the headquarter or the administrative offices of the State is based in Torit." Elsewhere , it says, "[Warap]'s capital city is Warab it might be changed to Kuajok." (retrieved 2011-08-10).
4. [4] Priority Results  from the Fifth Sudan Population and Housing Census, 2008. Central Bureau of Statistics. Dated 2009-04-08, retrieved 2011-08-10.
5. [5] Gurtong (Peace) website . Dated 2015-10-04, retrieved 2015-11-04.
6. [6] A blog  dated 2015-10-02, retrieved 2015-11-04.