title: The Sound of Music (film)

text: Wise also spent considerable time and effort on casting the secondary characters. For the role of Max Detweiler, Wise initially considered Victor Borge, Noël Coward, and Hal Holbrook among others before deciding on Richard Haydn. For the character of Baroness Elsa Schraeder, Wise looked for a "name" actress—Andrews and Plummer were not yet widely known to film audiences—and decided on Eleanor Parker. The casting of the children's characters began in November 1963 and involved over two hundred interviews and auditions throughout the United States and England. Some of the child actors interviewed or tested, who were not selected, included Mia Farrow, Patty Duke, Lesley Ann Warren, Geraldine Chaplin, Shelley Fabares, Teri Garr, Kurt Russell, and The Osmonds. Most of the actors selected had some acting, singing, or dancing experience. Charmian Carr, however, was a model who worked part-time in a doctor's office and had no ambition to pursue a career as an actress. After a friend sent her photo to Wise's office, she was asked to interview. Wise later recalled, "She was so pretty and had such poise and charm that we liked her immediately." The last person to be cast was Daniel Truhitte in the role of Rolfe.


title: The Sound of Music (film)

text: Rehearsals for the singing and dance sequences began on February 10, 1964. The husband-and-wife team of Marc Breaux and Dee Dee Wood, who had worked with Andrews on "Mary Poppins", worked out the choreography with Saul Chaplin on piano—the arrangements could not be altered under Rodgers and Hammerstein's contract. The stage choreography was not used because it was too restrictive. Breaux and Wood worked out all-new choreography better suited for the film that incorporated many of the Salzburg locations and settings. They even choreographed the newly added puppet dance sequence for "The Lonely Goatherd". The choreography for the "Ländler" strictly followed the traditional Austrian folk dance. The musical arranger Irwin Kostal prerecorded the songs with a large orchestra and singers on a stage before the start of filming. In her book, "The Sound of Music: The Making of America's Favorite Movie", Julia Antopol Hirsch says that Kostal used seven children and five adults to record the children's voices; the only scene in which the child-actors' singing is heard in the released version of the film is when they sing "The Sound of Music" on their own after Maria leaves. Charmian Carr refuted the claim that the voices of the child actors were dubbed in the film and on the soundtrack. Carr contended that all of the children who are in the film sing on the track, but four other children were added to most of the songs to give them a fuller sound; they did not replace them as singers. The voices of some of the adult actors had voice doubles, including those of Peggy Wood and Christopher Plummer.


title: The Sound of Music (film)

text: Principal photography began on March 26, 1964, at 20th Century Fox studios in Los Angeles, where scenes from Maria's bedroom and the abbey cloister and graveyard were filmed. The company then flew to Salzburg, where filming resumed on April 23 at Mondsee Abbey for the wedding scenes. From April 25 through May 22, scenes were filmed at the Felsenreitschule, Nonnberg Abbey, Mirabell Palace Gardens, Residence Fountain, and various street locations throughout the Altstadt (Old Town) area of the city. Wise faced opposition from city leaders who did not want him staging scenes with swastika banners. They relented after he threatened instead to include old newsreel footage featuring the banners. On days when it rained, a constant challenge for the company, Wise arranged for scenes to be shot at St. Margarethen Chapel and Dürer Studios (Reverend Mother's office). From May 23 to June 7, the company worked at Schloss Leopoldskron and an adjacent property called Bertelsmann for scenes representing the lakeside terrace and gardens of the von Trapp villa. From June 9 to 19, scenes were shot at Frohnburg Palace, which represented the front and back façades of the villa. Karath could not swim and was in danger during the capsizing boat scene. The "Do-Re-Mi" picnic scene in the mountains was filmed above the town of Werfen in the Salzach River valley on June 25 and 27. The opening sequence of Maria on her mountain was filmed from June 28 to July 2 at Mehlweg mountain near the town of Marktschellenberg in Bavaria. During filming, Birch trees were added and then removed. The brook she walks through was plastic filled with water which was put there during filming. The final scene of the von Trapp family escaping over the mountains was filmed on the Obersalzberg in the Bavarian Alps.


title: The Sound of Music (film)

text: The cast and crew flew back to Los Angeles and resumed filming at Fox Studios on July 6 for all remaining scenes, including those in the villa dining room, ballroom, terrace, living room, and gazebo. Following the last two scenes shot in the gazebo—for the songs "Something Good" and "Sixteen Going on Seventeen"—principal photography concluded on September 1, 1964. A total of eighty-three scenes were filmed in just over five months. Post-production work began on August 25 with three weeks of dialogue dubbing to correct lines that were ruined by various street noises and rain. In October, Christopher Plummer's singing voice was dubbed by veteran Disney playback singer Bill Lee. The film was then edited by Wise and film editor William Reynolds. Once the film was edited, Irwin Kostal, who orchestrated the musical numbers, underscored the film with background music consisting of variations on Rodgers and Hammerstein's original songs to amplify or add nuances to the visual images. When dubbing, editing, and scoring were complete, Wise arranged for two sneak-preview showings—the first one held in Minneapolis on Friday, January 15, 1965 at the Mann Theater, and the second one held the following night in Tulsa. Despite the "sensational" responses from the preview audiences, Wise made a few final editing changes before completing the film. According to the original print information for the film, the running time for the theatrical release version was 174 minutes. The film was still in release when the Motion Picture Association of America's film ratings system was implemented in 1968, and was subsequently given a "G" rating ("general audiences") in 1969.


title: The Sound of Music (film)

text: "The Sound of Music" was filmed in Todd-AO by Ted McCord and produced with DeLuxe Color processing. Aerial footage was photographed with an MCS-70 camera. The sound was recorded on a 70 mm six-track using a Westrex recording system. The sets used for the film were based on the storyboards of sketch artist Maurice Zuberano, who accompanied Wise to Austria to scout filming locations in November 1963. Wise met with the artist over ten weeks and explained his objective for each scene—the feeling he wanted to convey and the visual images he wanted to use. When Zuberano was finished, he provided Wise with a complete set of storyboards that illustrated each scene and set—storyboards the director used as guidance during filming. Zuberano's storyboards and location photos were also used by art director Boris Leven to design and construct all of the original interior sets at Fox studios, as well as some external sets in Salzburg. The von Trapp villa, for example, was actually filmed in several locations: the front and back façades of the villa were filmed at Frohnburg Palace, the lakeside terrace and gardens was a set constructed on a property adjacent to Schloss Leopoldskron called Bertelsmann, and the interior was a constructed set at Fox Studios. The gazebo scenes for "Something Good" and "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" were filmed on a larger reconstructed set at Fox studios, while some shots of the original gazebo were filmed on the grounds at Schloss Leopoldskron in Salzburg.


title: The Sound of Music (film)

text: Most of the soundtrack to "The Sound of Music" was written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II and arranged and conducted by Irwin Kostal, who also adapted the instrumental underscore passages. Both the lyrics and music for two new songs were written by Rodgers, as Hammerstein died in 1960. The soundtrack album was released by RCA Victor in 1965 and is one of the most successful soundtrack albums in history, having sold over 20 million copies worldwide.


title: The Sound of Music (film)

text: The album reached the number one position on the "Billboard" 200 that year in the United States. It remained in the top ten for 109 weeks, from May 1, 1965, to July 16, 1967, and remained on the "Billboard" 200 chart for 238 weeks. The album was the best-selling album in the United Kingdom in 1965, 1966, and 1968 and the second best-selling of the entire decade, spending a total of 70 weeks at number one on the UK Albums Chart. It also stayed 73 weeks on the Norwegian charts, becoming the seventh best-charting album of all time in that country. In 2015, "Billboard" named the album the second greatest album of all time.


title: The Sound of Music (film)

text: The album has been reissued several times, including anniversary editions with additional tracks in 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015.


title: The Sound of Music (film)

text: Robert Wise hired Mike Kaplan to direct the publicity campaign for the film. After reading the script, Kaplan decided on the ad line "The Happiest Sound in All the World", which would appear on promotional material and artwork. Kaplan also brought in outside agencies to work with the studio's advertising department to develop the promotional artwork, eventually selecting a painting by Howard Terpning of Andrews on an alpine meadow with her carpetbag and guitar case in hand with the children and Plummer in the background. In February 1964, Kaplan began placing ads in the trade papers "Daily Variety", "Weekly Variety", and "The Hollywood Reporter" to attract future exhibitor interest in the project. The studio intended the film to have an initial roadshow theatrical release in select large cities in theaters that could accommodate the 70-mm screenings and six-track stereophonic sound. The roadshow concept involved two showings a day with reserved seating and an intermission similar to Broadway musicals. Kaplan identified forty key cities that would likely be included in the roadshow release and developed a promotional strategy targeting the major newspapers of those cities. During the Salzburg production phase, 20th Century Fox organized press junkets for American journalists to interview Wise and his team and the cast members.


title: The Sound of Music (film)

text: The film had its opening premiere on March 2, 1965, at the Rivoli Theater in New York City. Initial reviews were mixed. Bosley Crowther, in "The New York Times", criticized the film's "romantic nonsense and sentiment", the children's "artificial roles", and Robert Wise's "cosy-cum-corny" direction. Judith Crist, in a biting review in the "New York Herald Tribune", dismissed the movie as "icky sticky" and designed for "the five to seven set and their mommies". In her review for "McCall's" magazine, Pauline Kael called the film "the sugar-coated lie people seem to want to eat", and that audiences have "turned into emotional and aesthetic imbeciles when we hear ourselves humming the sickly, goody-goody songs." Wise later recalled, "The East Coast, intellectual papers and magazines destroyed us, but the local papers and the trades gave us great reviews". Indeed, reviewers such as Philip K. Scheuer of the "Los Angeles Times" described the film as "three hours of visual and vocal brilliance", and "Variety" called it "a warmly-pulsating, captivating drama set to the most imaginative use of the lilting R-H tunes, magnificently mounted and with a brilliant cast". The "wildly mixed film reviews" reflected the critical response to the stage musical, according to "The Oxford Companion to the American Musical". After its Los Angeles premiere on March 10, "The Sound of Music" opened in 131 theaters in the United States, including a limited number of roadshow events. After four weeks, the film became the number one box office movie in the country and held that position for thirty out of the next forty-three weeks in 1965. The original theatrical release of the film in America lasted four and a half years.


title: The Sound of Music (film)

text: A few months after its United States release, "The Sound of Music" opened in 261 theaters in other countries, the first American movie to be completely dubbed in a foreign language, both dialogue, "and" music. The German, French, Italian, and Spanish versions were completely dubbed, the Japanese version had Japanese dialogue with English songs, and other versions were released with foreign subtitles. The film was a popular success in every country it opened, except the two countries where the story originated, Austria and Germany.


title: The Sound of Music (film)

text: In these two countries, the film had to compete with the much-loved "Die Trapp-Familie" (1956), which provided the original inspiration for the Broadway musical, and its sequel "Die Trapp-Familie in Amerika" (1958), both films are still widely popular in German-speaking Europe and considered the authoritative von Trapp story. Austrians took exception to the liberties taken by the filmmakers with regard to the costumes, which did not reflect the traditional style and the replacement of traditional Austrian folk songs with Broadway show tunes. The film's Nazi theme was especially unpopular in Germany, where the Munich branch manager for 20th Century Fox approved the unauthorized cutting of the entire third act of the film following the wedding sequence—the scenes showing Salzburg following the "Anschluss". Robert Wise and the studio intervened, the original film was restored, and the branch manager was fired.


title: The Sound of Music (film)

text: "The Sound of Music" holds an 83% "Certified Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on seventy-two reviews. The site's consensus states: "Unapologetically sweet and maybe even a little corny, The Sound of Music will win over all but the most cynical filmgoers with its classic songs and irresistible warmth."


title: The Sound of Music (film)

text: "The Sound of Music" is one of the most commercially successful films of all time. Four weeks after its theatrical release, it became the number one box office movie in the United States, from revenue generated by twenty-five theaters, each screening only ten roadshow performances per week. It held the number one position for thirty of the next forty-three weeks, and ended up the highest-grossing film of 1965. One contributing factor in the film's early commercial success was the repeat business of many filmgoers. In some cities in the United States, the number of tickets sold exceeded the total population. By January 1966, the film had earned $20 million in distributor rentals from just 140 roadshow engagements in the United States and Canada. Worldwide, "The Sound of Music" broke previous box-office records in twenty-nine countries, including the United Kingdom, where it played for a record-breaking three years at the Dominion Theatre in London and earned £4 million in rentals and grossed £6 million—more than twice as much as any other film had taken in. It was also a major success in the Netherlands, Hong Kong, and Tokyo, where it played for as long as two years at some theaters. It was not a universal success, however, with the film only enjoying modest success in France and it was a flop in Germany. It also initially performed poorly in Italy, but a re-release after the Oscars brought better results. It was number one at the US box office for a further 11 weeks in 1966, for a total of 41 weeks at number one. By November 1966, "The Sound of Music" had become the highest-grossing film of all time, with over in worldwide rentals ( in gross receipts), surpassing "Gone with the Wind", which held that distinction for twenty-four years. It was still in the top ten at the US box office in its 100th week of release.


title: The Sound of Music (film)

text: "The Sound of Music" completed its initial four-and-a-half year theatrical release run in the United States on Labor Day 1969, the longest initial run for a film in the US, having earned $68,313,000 in rentals in the United States and Canada. It played for 142 weeks at the Eglinton Theatre in Toronto. It was the first film to gross over $100 million. By December 1970, it had earned in worldwide rentals, which was over four times higher than the film's estimated break-even point of in rentals. The film was re-released in 1973, and increased its North American rentals to $78.4 million. By the end of the 1970s, it was ranked seventh in all-time North American rentals, having earned $79 million. The film's re-release in 1990 increased the total North American admissions to 142,415,400—the third-highest number of tickets sold behind "Gone with the Wind" and "Star Wars"—and about 283.3 million admissions worldwide. "The Sound of Music" eventually earned a total domestic gross of $163,214,076 and a total worldwide gross of $286,214,076. Adjusted for inflation, the film earned about $2.366 billion at 2014 prices—placing it among the top ten highest-grossing films of all time.


title: The Sound of Music (film)

text: The first American television transmission of "The Sound of Music" was on February 29, 1976, on ABC, which paid $15 million () for a one-time only broadcast that became one of the top 20 rated films shown on television to that point with a Nielsen rating of 33.6 and an audience share of 49%. The movie was not shown again until NBC acquired the broadcast rights in June 1977 for $21.5 million for 20 showings over 22 years and telecast the film on February 11, 1979. NBC continued to air the film annually for twenty years. During most of its run on NBC, the film was heavily edited to fit a three-hour time slot—approximately 140 minutes without commercials, which inevitably cut 30 minutes out of the original film.


title: The Sound of Music (film)

text: The film aired in its uncut form (minus the entr'acte) on April 9, 1995, on NBC. Julie Andrews hosted the four-hour telecast which presented the musical numbers in a letterboxed format. As the film's home video availability cut into its television ratings, NBC let their contract lapse in 2001. That year, the film was broadcast one time on the Fox network, in its heavily edited 140-minute version. Since 2002, the film has aired on ABC on a Sunday night prior to Christmas and has been broadcast on its sister cable network, Freeform, periodically around Easter and other holidays. Most of its more recent runs have been the full version in a four-hour time slot, complete with the entr'acte. ABC first broadcast a high-definition version on December 28, 2008. On December 22, 2013, the annual broadcast had its highest ratings since 2007; the increase in ratings were credited to NBC's broadcast of "The Sound of Music Live!"—a live television adaptation of the original musical which aired earlier that month.


title: The Sound of Music (film)

text: In the United Kingdom, the film rights were acquired by the BBC, who paid a corporation record $4.1 million, and it was first aired on BBC One on 25 December 1978 and, as of December 2016, fifteen times since, mostly around Christmas time. As the BBC channels in Britain are not funded by advertising there was no need to cut scenes to fit within a timeslot and the film was screened in the full 174-minute version without breaks. The film was also intended to be part of the BBC's programming during the outbreak of nuclear war.


title: The Sound of Music (film)

text: The film has been released on VHS, LaserDisc, and DVD numerous times. The first DVD version was released on August 29, 2000, to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the film's release. The film is often included in box sets with other Rodgers & Hammerstein film adaptations. A 40th anniversary DVD, with "making of" documentaries and special features, was released on November 15, 2005. The film made its debut issue on Blu-ray Disc on November 2, 2010, for its 45th anniversary. For the Blu-ray release, the original 70 mm negatives were rescanned at 8K resolution, then restored and remastered at 4K resolution for the transfer to Blu-ray, giving the most detailed copy of the film seen thus far. On March 10, 2015, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released "The Sound of Music 50th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Edition"—a five-disc set featuring thirteen hours of bonus features, including a new documentary, "The Sound of a City: Julie Andrews Returns to Salzburg". A March 2015 episode of ABC's 20/20 entitled "The Untold Story of the Sound of Music" featured a preview of the documentary and interviews by Diane Sawyer.


title: The Sound of Music (film)

text: In part to the acquisition of 21st Century Fox by Disney, the film was made available on the Disney+ streaming service upon its debut on November 12, 2019.


title: The Sound of Music (film)

text: "The Sound of Music" film adaptation, like the stage musical, presents a history of the von Trapp family (a.k.a. the Trapp Family) that is not completely accurate. The musical was based on the West German film "The Trapp Family" (1956) rather than Maria von Trapp's 1949 memoirs, as director Vincent J. Donehue had seen the film and decided that it would make a good vehicle for Mary Martin. The musical followed the film's plot so closely that the "New York Times" review of the West German film noticed that it "strongly suggests 'The Sound of Music,' often scene by scene." The West German screenwriters made several significant changes to the family's story that were kept in the musical. Maria had been hired to teach just one child, but the 1956 film made her governess to all seven children.


title: The Sound of Music (film)

text: The 1965 film adaptation was influenced by other musicals of its era, such as "Mary Poppins", the Rodgers and Hammerstein television production of "Cinderella", and the stage production of Lerner and Loewe's "Camelot" (coincidentally all starring Julie Andrews). Screenwriter Ernest Lehman was inspired by the opening of "West Side Story" and saw the musical as "a fairy tale that's almost real". The film incorporated many "fairy tale" tropes which included the idyllic imagery (placed in the hills of Salzburg), the European villas, and the cross-class Cinderella-like romance between Maria and Captain Von Trapp. As Maria walks down the aisle to be married, the pageantry is explicitly both Guinevere and Cinderella.


title: The Sound of Music (film)

text: In keeping with this tone the filmmakers used artistic license to convey the essence and meaning of their story. Georg Ludwig von Trapp was indeed an anti-Nazi opposed to the Anschluss, and lived with his family in a villa in a district of Salzburg called Aigen. Their lifestyle depicted in the film, however, greatly exaggerated their standard of living. The actual family villa, located at Traunstraße 34, Aigen 5026, was large and comfortable but not nearly as grand as the mansion depicted in the film. The house was also not their ancestral home, as depicted in the film. The family had previously lived in homes in Zell Am See and Klosterneuburg after being forced to abandon their actual ancestral home in Pola following World War I. Georg moved the family to the Salzburg villa shortly after the death of his first wife, Agathe Whitehead, in 1922.


title: The Sound of Music (film)

text: Georg is referred to as "Captain" in the film, but he held a noble title of "Ritter" (hereditary knight), which had higher social status than a naval officer. Although Austrian nobility was legally abolished in 1919 and the nobiliary particle "von" was proscribed, both continued to be widely used unofficially as a matter of social courtesy. Georg was offered a position in the German "Kriegsmarine", but this occurred before the Anschluss. Nazi Germany was looking to expand its fleet of U-boats, and Corvette Captain von Trapp was the most successful Austro-Hungarian submarine commander of World War I, having sunk 11 Allied merchant ships totaling 47,653 GRT and two Allied warships displacing a total of 12,641 tons. With his family in desperate financial straits, he seriously considered the offer before deciding he could not serve a Nazi regime.


title: The Sound of Music (film)

text: In the film, Georg is depicted initially as a humorless, emotionally distant father. In reality, third child Maria Franziska von Trapp (called "Louisa" in the film) described her father as a doting parent who made handmade gifts for the children in his woodshop and who would often lead family musicales on his violin. She has a different recollection of her stepmother, Maria Augusta Kutschera, whom she described as moody and prone to outbursts of rage. In a 2003 interview, Maria remembered, "[She] had a terrible temper ... and from one moment to the next, you didn't know what hit her. We were not used to this. But we took it like a thunderstorm that would pass, because the next minute she could be very nice."


title: The Sound of Music (film)

text: Maria Kutschera had indeed been a novice at Nonnberg Abbey in Salzburg and had been hired by the von Trapp family. However, she was hired only to be a tutor to young Maria Franziska, who had come down with scarlet fever and needed her lessons at home, not to be a governess for all of the children. Maria and Georg married for practical reasons, rather than love and affection for each other. Georg needed a mother for his children, and Maria needed the security of a husband and family once she decided to leave the abbey. "I really and truly was not in love," Maria wrote in her memoir, "I liked him but didn't love him. However, I loved the children, so in a way I really married the children. I learned to love him more than I have ever loved before or after." They were married in 1927, not in 1938 as depicted in the film, and the couple had been married for over a decade by the time of the Anschluss and had two of their three children together by that time. Maria and Georg enjoyed a happy marriage.


title: The Sound of Music (film)

text: The von Trapp family lost most of its wealth during the worldwide depression of the early 1930s, when the Austrian national bank folded. In order to survive, the family dismissed the servants and began taking in boarders. They also started singing onstage to earn money, a fact that caused the proud Georg much embarrassment. In the film, the von Trapp family hike over the Alps from Austria to Switzerland to escape the Nazis, which would not have been possible; Salzburg is over two hundred miles from Switzerland. The von Trapp villa, however, was only a few kilometers from the Austria–Germany border, and the final scene shows the family hiking on the Obersalzberg near the German town of Berchtesgaden, within sight of Adolf Hitler's Kehlsteinhaus Eagle's Nest retreat. In reality, the family simply walked to the local train station and boarded a train to Italy. The Trapps were entitled to Italian citizenship since Georg had been born in Zadar, Dalmatia, Austria-Hungary, which had been annexed by Italy after World War I. They were able to emigrate to the United States on their Italian passports.


title: The Sound of Music (film)

text: The character Max Detweiler, the scheming family music director, is fictional. The von Trapps' family priest, the Reverend Franz Wasner, was their musical director for over twenty years and accompanied them when they left Austria. The character of Friedrich, the second oldest child in the film version, was based on Rupert, the oldest of the real von Trapp children. Liesl, the oldest child in the film, was based on Agathe von Trapp, the second oldest in the real family. The names and ages of the children were changed, in part because the third child, who would be portrayed as "Louisa", was also named Maria, and producers thought that it would be confusing to have two characters called Maria in the film. The von Trapp family had no control over how they were depicted in the film and stage musical, having given up the rights to their story to a German producer in the 1950s who then sold the rights to American producers. Robert Wise met with Maria von Trapp and made it clear, according to a memo to Richard Zanuck, that he was not making a "documentary or realistic movie" about her family, and that he would make the film with "complete dramatic freedom" in order to produce a "fine and moving film", one they could all be proud of.


title: The Sound of Music (film)

text: Although "The Sound of Music" is set in Salzburg, it was largely ignored in Austria upon release. The film adaptation was a blockbuster worldwide, but it ran for only three days in Salzburg movie theaters, with locals showing "disdain" for a film that "wasn't authentic." In 1966, American Express created the first "Sound of Music" guided tour in Salzburg. Since 1972, Panorama Tours has been the leading "Sound of Music" bus tour company in the city, taking approximately 50,000 tourists a year to various film locations in Salzburg and the surrounding region. Although the Salzburg tourism industry took advantage of the attention from foreign tourists, residents of the city were apathetic about "everything that is dubious about tourism." The guides on the bus tour "seem to have little idea of what really happened on the set." Even the ticket agent for the "Sound of Music" Dinner Show tried to dissuade Austrians from attending a performance that was intended for American tourists, saying that it "does not have anything to do with the real Austria." By 2007, "The Sound of Music" was drawing 300,000 visitors a year to Salzburg, more than the city's self-conception as the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. A German translation of the musical was performed on the national stage for the first time in 2005 at the Vienna Volksoper, receiving negative reviews from Austrian critics, who called it "boring" and referred to "Edelweiss" as "an insult to Austrian musical creation." The musical finally premiered in Salzburg in 2011 at the Salzburger Landestheater, but Maria was played in the Salzburg premiere by a Dutch actress who "grew up with the songs." However, most performances in Vienna and Salzburg were sold out, and the musical is now in both companies' repertoire.


title: The Sound of Music (film)

text: A "Sing-along Sound of Music" revival screening was first shown at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival in 1999, leading to a successful run at the Prince Charles Cinema which is ongoing as of 2018. During the screenings, audience members are often dressed as nuns and von Trapp children and are encouraged to sing along to lyrics superimposed on the screen. In July 2000, "Sing-along Sound of Music" shows opened in Boston and Austin, Texas. Some audience members dressed up as cast members and interacted with the action shown on the screen. The film began a successful run at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City in September 2000, with the opening attended by cast members Charmian Carr (Liesl), Daniel Truhitte (Rolfe), and Kym Karath (Gretl). "Sing-along Sound of Music" screenings have since become an international phenomenon.


title: The Sound of Music (film)

text: In 2001, the United States Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry, finding it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The Academy Film Archive preserved "The Sound of Music" in 2003.


title: 2022 national electoral calendar

text: This national electoral calendar for 2022 lists the national/federal elections held in 2022 in all sovereign states and their dependent territories. By-elections are excluded, though national referendums are included.


title: 2022 national electoral calendar

text: The following indirect elections of heads of state and the upper houses of bicameral legislatures are scheduled to take place through votes in elected lower houses, unicameral legislatures, or electoral colleges:


title: South Sudan

text: South Sudan (; ), officially the Republic of South Sudan (), is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered by Ethiopia, Sudan, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda and Kenya. Its population was estimated as 12,778,250 in 2019. Juba is the capital and largest city.


title: South Sudan

text: It gained independence from Sudan on 9 July 2011, making it the most recent sovereign state or country with widespread recognition as of 2022. It includes the vast swamp region of the Sudd, formed by the White Nile and known locally as the "Bahr al Jabal", meaning "Mountain River". Sudan was occupied by Egypt under the Muhammad Ali dynasty and was governed as an Anglo-Egyptian condominium until Sudanese independence 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 broke out in 1983 and ended in 2005 with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. 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, following 98.83% support for independence in a January 2011 referendum. It has suffered ethnic violence and endured a civil war characterised by rampant human rights abuses, including various ethnic massacres and killings of journalists by various parties to the conflict from December 2013 until February 2020, when competing combat leaders Salva Kiir Mayardit and Riek Machar struck a unity deal and formed a coalition government, paving the way for refugees to return home.


title: South Sudan

text: The South Sudanese population is composed mostly of Nilotic peoples, and it is demographically among the youngest nations in the world, with roughly half under 18 years old. The majority of inhabitants adhere to Christianity or various Indigenous faiths. The country is a member of the United Nations, the African Union, the East African Community, and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development.


title: South Sudan

text: The name "Sudan" is a name given to a geographical region to the south of the Sahara, stretching from Western Africa to eastern Central Africa. The name derives from the Arabic "" (), or the "Land of the Blacks".


title: South Sudan

text: The Nilotic people of South Sudan—the Dinka, Anyuak, Bari, Acholi, Nuer, Shilluk, Kaligi (Arabic Feroghe), and others—first entered South Sudan sometime before the tenth century, coinciding with the fall of medieval Nubia. From the 15th to the 19th century, tribal migrations, largely from the area of Bahr el Ghazal, brought the Anyuak, Dinka, Nuer and Shilluk to their modern locations in Bahr El Ghazal and the Upper Nile Region, while the Acholi and Bari settled in Equatoria. The Zande, Mundu, Avukaya and Baka, who entered South Sudan in the 16th century, established the region's largest state of Equatoria Region.


title: South Sudan

text: The Dinka is the largest, Nuer the second largest, the Zande the third-largest, and the Bari the fourth-largest of South Sudan's ethnic groups. They are found in the Maridi, Yambio, and Tombura districts in the tropical rainforest belt of Western Equatoria, the Adio of Azande client in Yei, Central Equatoria, and Western Bahr el Ghazal. In the 18th century, the Avungara sib rose to power over the rest of Azande society, a domination which continued into the 20th century. British policies favoring Christian missionaries, such as the Closed District Ordinance of 1922 (see History of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan), and geographical barriers such as the swamplands along the White Nile curtailed the spread of Islam to the south, thus allowing the southern tribes to retain much of their social and cultural heritage, as well as their political and religious institutions.


title: South Sudan

text: British colonial policy in Sudan had a long history of emphasizing development of the Arab north, and largely ignoring the Black African south, which lacked schools, hospitals, roads, bridges, and other basic infrastructure. After Sudan's first independent elections in 1958, the continued neglect of the southern region by the Khartoum government led to uprisings, revolt, and the longest civil war on the continent. Peoples affected by the violence included the Dinka, Nuer, Shilluk, Anyuak, Murle, Bari, Mundari, Baka, Balanda Bviri, Boya, Didinga, Jiye, Kaligi, Kuku, Lotuka, Nilotic, Toposa and Zande.


title: South Sudan

text: The Azande have had good relations with their neighbours, namely the Moru, Mundu, Pöjulu, Avukaya, Baka and the small groups in Bahr el Ghazal, due to the expansionist policy of their king Gbudwe, in the 18th century. In the 19th century, the Azande fought the French, the Belgians and the Mahdists to maintain their independence. Ottoman Egypt, under the rule of Khedive Ismail Pasha, first attempted to control the region in the 1870s, establishing the province of Equatoria in the southern portion. Egypt's first appointed governor was Samuel Baker, commissioned in 1869, followed by Charles George Gordon in 1874, and by Emin Pasha in 1878.


title: South Sudan

text: The Mahdist Revolt of the 1880s destabilized the nascent province, and Equatoria ceased to exist as an Egyptian outpost in 1889. Important settlements in Equatoria included Lado, Gondokoro, Dufile and Wadelai. European colonial maneuverings in the region came to a head in 1898, when the Fashoda Incident occurred at present-day Kodok; Britain and France almost went to war over the region. In 1947, British hopes of joining South Sudan with Uganda while leaving Western Equatoria as part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo were dashed by the Rajaf Conference to unify North and South Sudan.


title: South Sudan

text: South Sudan has an estimated population of 8 million, but, given the lack of a census in several decades, this estimate may be severely distorted. The economy is predominantly rural and relies chiefly on subsistence farming. Around 2005, the economy began a transition from this rural dominance, and urban areas within South Sudan have seen extensive development.


title: South Sudan

text: The region has been negatively affected by two civil wars since Sudanese independence: from 1955 to 1972, the Sudanese government fought the Anyanya rebel army (Anya-Nya is a term in the Madi language which means "snake venom") during the First Sudanese Civil War, followed by the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) in the Second Sudanese Civil War for over 20 years. As a result, the country suffered serious neglect, a lack of infrastructural development, and major destruction and displacement. More than 2.5 million people have been killed, and millions more have become refugees both within and outside the country.


title: South Sudan

text: Between 9 and 15 January 2011, a referendum was held to determine whether South Sudan should become an independent country and separate from Sudan, with 98.83% of the population voting for independence. On 23 January 2011, members of a steering committee on post-independence governing told reporters that upon independence the land would be named the Republic of South Sudan "out of familiarity and convenience". Other names that had been considered were Azania, Nile Republic, Kush Republic and even Juwama, a portmanteau for Juba, Wau and Malakal, three major cities. South Sudan formally became independent from Sudan on 9 July, although certain disputes still remained, including the division of oil revenues, as 75% of all the former Sudan's oil reserves are in South Sudan. The region of Abyei still remains disputed and a separate referendum will be held in Abyei on whether they want to join Sudan or South Sudan. The South Kordofan conflict broke out in June 2011 between the Army of Sudan and the SPLA over the Nuba Mountains.


title: South Sudan

text: On 9 July 2011, South Sudan became the 54th independent country in Africa (9 July is now celebrated as Independence Day, a national holiday) and since 14 July 2011, South Sudan is the 193rd member of the United Nations. On 27 July 2011, South Sudan became the 54th country to join the African Union. In September 2011, Google Maps recognized South Sudan as an independent country, after a massive crowdsourcing mapping initiative was launched.


title: South Sudan

text: In 2011 it was reported that South Sudan was at war with at least seven armed groups in 9 of its 10 states, with tens of thousands displaced. The fighters accuse the government of plotting to stay in power indefinitely, not fairly representing and supporting all tribal groups while neglecting development in rural areas. Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) also operates in a wide area that includes South Sudan.


title: South Sudan

text: Inter-ethnic warfare that in some cases predates the war of independence is widespread. In December 2011, tribal clashes intensified between the Nuer White Army of the Lou Nuer and the Murle. The White Army warned it would wipe out the Murle and would also fight South Sudanese and UN forces sent to the area around Pibor.


title: South Sudan

text: In March 2012, South Sudanese forces seized the Heglig oil fields in lands claimed by both Sudan and South Sudan in the province of South Kordofan after conflict with Sudanese forces in the South Sudanese state of Unity. South Sudan withdrew on 20 March, and the Sudanese Army entered Heglig two days later.


title: South Sudan

text: South Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo are the newest members of the East African Community. South Sudan acceded to the Treaty of the East Africa Community on 15 April 2016 and become a full Member on 15 August 2016.


title: South Sudan

text: In December 2013, a political power struggle broke out between President Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar, as the president accused Machar and ten others of attempting a coup d'état. Fighting broke out, igniting the South Sudanese Civil War. Ugandan troops were deployed to fight alongside South Sudanese government forces against the rebels. The United Nations has peacekeepers in the country as part of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS). Numerous ceasefires were mediated by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) between the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) and SPLM – in opposition and were subsequently broken. A peace agreement was signed in Ethiopia under threat of United Nations sanctions for both sides in August 2015. Machar returned to Juba in 2016 and was appointed vice president. Following a second breakout of violence in Juba, Machar was replaced as vice-president and he fled the country as the conflict erupted again. Rebel in-fighting has become a major part of the conflict. Rivalry among Dinka factions led by the President and Malong Awan have also led to fighting. In August 2018, another power sharing agreement came into effect.


title: South Sudan

text: About 400,000 people are estimated to have been killed in the war, including notable atrocities such as the 2014 Bentiu massacre. Although both men have supporters from across South Sudan's ethnic divides, subsequent fighting has been communal, with rebels targeting members of Kiir's Dinka ethnic group and government soldiers attacking Nuers. More than 4 million people have been displaced, with about 1.8 million of those internally displaced, and about 2.5 million having fled to neighboring countries, especially Uganda and Sudan.


title: South Sudan

text: On 20 February 2020, Salva Kiir Mayardit and Riek Machar agreed to a peace deal, and on 22 February 2020 formed a national unity government.


title: South Sudan

text: The now-defunct Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly ratified a transitional constitution shortly before independence on 9 July 2011. The constitution was signed by the President of South Sudan on Independence Day and thereby came into force. It is now the supreme law of the land, superseding the Interim Constitution of 2005.


title: South Sudan

text: The constitution establishes a presidential system of government headed by a president who is head of state, head of government, and commander-in-chief of the armed forces. It also establishes the National Legislature comprising two houses: a directly elected assembly, the National Legislative Assembly, and a second chamber of representatives of the states, the Council of States.


title: South Sudan

text: John Garang, the founder of the SPLA/M, was the first president of the autonomous government until his death on 30 July 2005. Salva Kiir Mayardit, his deputy, was sworn in as First Vice President of Sudan and President of the Government of Southern Sudan on 11 August 2005. Riek Machar replaced him as Vice-President of the Government. Legislative power is vested in the government and the bicameral National Legislature. The constitution also provides for an independent judiciary, the highest organ being the Supreme Court.


title: South Sudan

text: On 8 May 2021, South Sudan President Salva Kiir announced a dissolution in Parliament as part of a 2018 peace deal to set up a new legislative body that will number 550 lawmakers


title: South Sudan

text: The capital of South Sudan is located at Juba, which is also the state capital of Central Equatoria and the county seat of the eponymous Juba County, and is the country's largest city. However, due to Juba's poor infrastructure and massive urban growth, as well as its lack of centrality within South Sudan, the South Sudanese Government adopted a resolution in February 2011 to study the creation of a new planned city to serve as the seat of government. It is planned that the capital city will be changed to the more centrally located Ramciel. This proposal is functionally similar to construction projects in Abuja, Nigeria; Brasília, Brazil; and Canberra, Australia; among other modern-era planned national capitals. It is unclear how the government will fund the project.


title: South Sudan

text: In September 2011, a spokesman for the government said the country's political leaders had accepted a proposal to build a new capital at Ramciel, a place in Lakes state near the borders with Central Equatoria and Jonglei. Ramciel is considered to be the geographical center of the country, and the late pro-independence leader John Garang allegedly had plans to relocate the capital there before his death in 2005. The proposal was supported by the Lakes state government and at least one Ramciel tribal chief. The design, planning, and construction of the city will likely take as many as five years, government ministers said, and the move of national institutions to the new capital will be implemented in stages.


title: South Sudan

text: Under the terms of a peace agreement signed on 22 February 2020, South Sudan is divided into 10 states, two administrative areas and one area with special administrative status.


title: South Sudan

text: As a result of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed in 2005, the Abyei Area was given special administrative status and following the independence of South Sudan in 2011, is considered to be simultaneously part of both the Republic of Sudan and the Republic of South Sudan, effectively a condominium.


title: South Sudan

text: The Kafia Kingi area is disputed between South Sudan and Sudan and the Ilemi Triangle is disputed between South Sudan and Kenya.


title: South Sudan

text: The states of and administrative areas are grouped into the three former historical provinces of the Sudan; Bahr el Ghazal, Equatoria and Greater Upper Nile:


title: South Sudan

text: In October 2015, South Sudan's President Salva Kiir issued a decree establishing 28 states in place of the 10 constitutionally established states. The decree established the new states largely along ethnic lines. A number of opposition parties and civil society challenged the constitutionality of this decree and Kiir later resolved to take it to parliament for approval as a constitutional amendment. In November the South Sudanese parliament empowered President Kiir to create new states.


title: South Sudan

text: On 14 January 2017 another four states have been created, Central Upper Nile, Northern Upper Nile, Tumbura and Maiwut leading to an overall number of 32.


title: South Sudan

text: The Abyei Area, a small region of Sudan bordering on the South Sudanese states of Northern Bahr el Ghazal, Warrap, and Unity, currently has a special administrative status in Sudan and is governed by an Abyei Area Administration. It was due to hold a referendum in 2011 on whether to join South Sudan or remain part of the Republic of Sudan, but in May the Sudanese military seized Abyei, and it is not clear if the referendum will be held.


title: South Sudan

text: Prior to 2015, South Sudan was divided into the current 10 states, which also correspond to three historical regions: Bahr el Ghazal, Equatoria, and Greater Upper Nile:


title: South Sudan

text: A Defense paper was initiated in 2007 by then Minister for SPLA Affairs Dominic Dim Deng, and a draft was produced in 2008. It declared that Southern Sudan would eventually maintain land, air, and riverine forces.


title: South Sudan

text: , South Sudan has the third highest military spending as a percentage of GDP in the world, behind only Oman and Saudi Arabia.


title: South Sudan

text: While former Information Minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin vowed that South Sudan will respect freedom of the press and allow journalists unrestricted access in the country, the chief editor of Juba newspaper "The Citizen" claimed that in the absence of a formal media law in the fledgling republic, he and his staff have faced abuse at the hands of security forces. This alleged fettering of media freedom was attributed in an Al Jazeera report to the difficulty SPLM has faced in reforming itself as a legitimate government after years of leading a rebellion against the Sudanese government. "The Citizen" is South Sudan's largest newspaper, but poor infrastructure and poverty have kept its staff relatively small and limited the efficiency of both its reporting and its circulation outside of Juba, with no dedicated news bureaus in outlying states and newspapers often taking several days to reach states like Northern Bahr el Ghazal. In May 2020, "South Sudan Friendship Press" was established as the country's first dedicated online news website.


title: South Sudan

text: On 1 November 2011, South Sudan's National Security Services (NSS) arrested the editor of a private Juba-based daily, "Destiny", and suspended its activities indefinitely. This was in response to an opinion article by columnist Dengdit Ayok, entitled "Let Me Say So", which criticized the president for allowing his daughter to marry an Ethiopian national, and accused him of "staining his patriotism". An official letter accused the newspaper of breaking "the media code of conduct and professional ethics", and of publishing "illicit news" that was defamatory, inciting, and invading the privacy of personalities. The Committee to Protect Journalists had voiced concerns over media freedoms in South Sudan in September. The NSS released the journalists without charge after having held them for 18 days.


title: South Sudan

text: In 2015, Salva Kiir threatened to kill journalists who reported "against the country". Work conditions have become terrible for journalists, and many have left the country. Documentary filmmaker Ochan Hannington is one of them. In August 2015, after journalist Peter Moi was killed in a targeted attack, being the seventh journalist killed during the year, South Sudanese journalists held a 24-hour news blackout.


title: South Sudan

text: In August 2017, a 26-year-old American journalist, Christopher Allen, was killed in Kaya, Yei River State, during fighting between government and opposition forces. Christopher Allen was a freelance journalist who had worked for several U.S. news outlets. He had been reportedly embedded with the opposition forces in South Sudan for a week before he was killed. The same month, President Salva Kiir said the millions of civilians fleeing South Sudan were being driven by the propaganda from social media users conspiring against his government. Just a month prior in July 2017, access to major news websites and popular blogs including Sudan Tribune and Radio Tamazuj had been blocked by the government without formal notice. In June 2020, access to Sudans Post, a local news website, was blocked by the government following the publication of an article deemed defamatory by the NSS. Two months later, Qurium Media Foundation, a Swedish non-profit organization, announced that it has deployed a mirror for the website to circumvent the government blocking.


title: South Sudan

text: Since independence, relations with Sudan have been changing. Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir first announced, in January 2011, that dual citizenship in the North and the South would be allowed, but upon the independence of South Sudan he retracted the offer. He has also suggested an EU-style confederation. Essam Sharaf, Prime Minister of Egypt after the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, made his first foreign visit to Khartoum and Juba in the lead-up to South Sudan's secession. Israel quickly recognized South Sudan as an independent country, and is host to thousands of refugees from South Sudan, who now face deportation to their native country. According to American sources, President Obama officially recognised the new state after Sudan, Egypt, Germany and Kenya were among the first to recognise the country's independence on 8 July 2011. Several states that participated in the international negotiations concluded with a self-determination referendum were also quick to acknowledge the overwhelming result. The Rationalist process included Kenya, Uganda, Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya, Eritrea, the United Kingdom and Norway.


title: South Sudan

text: South Sudan is a member state of the United Nations, the African Union, and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa. South Sudan plans to join the Commonwealth of Nations, the East African Community, the International Monetary Fund, OPEC+, and the World Bank. Some international trade organizations categorize South Sudan as part of the Greater Horn of Africa.


title: South Sudan

text: Full membership in the Arab League has been assured, should the country's government choose to seek it, though it could also opt for observer status. It was admitted to UNESCO on 3 November 2011. On 25 November 2011, it officially joined the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, a regional grouping of East African states.


title: South Sudan

text: The United States supported the 2011 referendum on South Sudan's independence. The "New York Times" reported that "South Sudan is in many ways an American creation, carved out of war-torn Sudan in a referendum largely orchestrated by the United States, its fragile institutions nurtured with billions of dollars in American aid." The U.S. government's long-standing sanctions against Sudan were officially removed from applicability to newly independent South Sudan in December 2011, and senior RSS officials participated in a high-level international engagement conference in Washington, D.C., to help connect foreign investors with the RSS and South Sudanese private sector representatives. Given the interdependence between some sectors of the economy of the Republic of South Sudan and the Republic of Sudan, certain activities still require OFAC authorization. Absent a license, current Sudanese sanction regulations will continue to prohibit U.S. persons from dealing in property and interests that benefit Sudan or the Government of Sudan. A 2011 Congressional Research Service report, "The Republic of South Sudan: Opportunities and Challenges for Africa’s Newest Country", identifies outstanding political and humanitarian issues as the country forges its future.


title: South Sudan

text: In July 2019, UN ambassadors of 37 countries, including South Sudan, have signed a joint letter to the UNHRC defending China's treatment of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region.


title: South Sudan

text: Campaigns of atrocities against civilians have been attributed to the SPLA. In the SPLA/M's attempt to disarm rebellions among the Shilluk and Murle, they burned scores of villages, raped hundreds of women and girls and killed an untold number of civilians. Civilians alleging torture claim fingernails being torn out, burning plastic bags dripped on children to make their parents hand over weapons, and villagers burned alive in their huts if it was suspected that rebels had spent the night there. In May 2011, the SPLA allegedly set fire to over 7,000 homes in Unity State.


title: South Sudan

text: The UN reports many of these violations and the frustrated director of one Juba-based international aid agency calls them "human rights abuses off the Richter scale". In 2010, the CIA issued a warning that "over the next five years...a new mass killing or genocide is most likely to occur in southern Sudan." The Nuer White Army has stated it wished to "wipe out the entire Murle tribe on the face of the earth as the only solution to guarantee long-term security of Nuer’s cattle" and activists, including Minority Rights Group International, warned of genocide in Jonglei. At the beginning of 2017, genocide was imminent again.


title: South Sudan

text: Peter Abdul Rahaman Sule, the leader of the key opposition group United Democratic Forum, has been under arrest since 3 November 2011 over allegations linking him to the formation of a new rebel group fighting against the government.


title: South Sudan

text: Recruitment of child soldiers has also been cited as a serious problem in the country. In April 2014, Navi Pillay, then the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, stated that more than 9,000 child soldiers had been fighting in South Sudan's civil war.


title: South Sudan

text: The United Nations rights office has described the situation in the country as "one of the most horrendous human rights situations in the world". It accused the army and allied militias of allowing fighters to rape women as form of payment for fighting, as well as raid cattle in an agreement of "do what you can, take what you can." Amnesty International claimed the army suffocated to death in a shipping container more than 60 people accused of supporting the opposition.


title: South Sudan

text: On 22 December 2017, at the conclusion of a 12-day visit to the region, the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan said, "Four years following the start of the current conflict in South Sudan, gross human rights violations continue to be committed in a widespread way by all parties to the conflict, in which civilians are bearing the brunt." The Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan was established by the Human Rights Council in March 2016.


title: South Sudan

text: 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.


title: South Sudan

text: 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.


title: South Sudan

text: 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.


title: South Sudan

text: 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, both types of antelope, 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.


title: South Sudan

text: Little is known of the fungi of South Sudan. A list of fungi in Sudan was prepared by S. A. J. Tarr and published by the then Commonwealth Mycological Institute (Kew, Surrey, UK) in 1955. The list, of 383 species in 175 genera, included all fungi observed within the then boundaries of the country. Many of those records relate to what is now South Sudan. Most of the species recorded were associated with diseases of crops. The true number of species of fungi in South Sudan is probably much higher.


title: South Sudan

text: In 2006, President Kiir announced that his government would do everything possible to protect and propagate South Sudanese fauna and flora, and seek to reduce the effects of wildfires, waste dumping, and water pollution. The environment is threatened by the development of the economy and infrastructure. The country had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 9.45/10, ranking it fourth globally out of 172 countries.


title: South Sudan

text: Several ecoregions extend across South Sudan: the East Sudanian savanna, Northern Congolian forest–savanna mosaic, Saharan flooded grasslands (Sudd), Sahelian Acacia savanna, East African montane forests, and the Northern Acacia–Commiphora bushlands and thickets.


title: South Sudan

text: South Sudan has a tropical climate, characterized by a rainy season of high humidity and large amounts of rainfall followed by a drier season. The temperature on average is always high with July being the coolest month with average temperatures falling between and March being the warmest month with average temperatures ranging from .


title: South Sudan

text: The most rainfall is seen between May and October, but the rainy season can commence in April and extend until November. On average May is the wettest month. The season is "influenced by the annual shift of the Inter-Tropical Zone" and the shift to southerly and southwesterly winds leading to slightly lower temperatures, higher humidity, and more cloud coverage.


title: South Sudan

text: South Sudan has a population of approximately /1e6 round 0 million and a predominantly rural, subsistence economy. This region has been negatively affected by war for all but 10 of the years since 1956, resulting in serious neglect, lack of infrastructure development, and major destruction and displacement. More than 2 million people have died, and more than 4 million are internally displaced persons or became refugees as a result of the civil war and its impact.


title: South Sudan

text: The major ethnic groups present in South Sudan are the Dinka at more than 1 million (approximately 15 percent combined), the Nuer (approximately five percent), the Bari, and the Azande. The Shilluk constitute a historically influential state along the White Nile, and their language is fairly closely related to Dinka and Nuer. The traditional territories of the Shilluk and the Northeastern Dinka are adjacent. Currently, around 800,000 expatriates from the Horn of Africa are living in South Sudan.


title: South Sudan

text: Unlike the previous educational system of the regional Southern Sudan—which was modeled after the system used in the Republic of Sudan since 1990—the current educational system of the Republic of South Sudan follows the system (similar to Kenya). Primary education consists of eight years, followed by four years of secondary education, and then four years of university instruction.


title: South Sudan

text: The primary language at all levels is English, as compared to the Republic of Sudan, where the language of instruction is Arabic. In 2007, South Sudan adopted English as the official language of communication. There is a severe shortage of English teachers and English-speaking teachers in the scientific and technical fields.


title: South Sudan

text: On 1 October 2019, The South Sudan Library Foundation opened South Sudan's first public library, the Juba Public Peace Library in Gudele 2. The library currently employs a staff of over 40 volunteers and maintains a collection of over 13,000 books. The South Sudan Library Foundation was co-founded by Yawusa Kintha and Kevin Lenahan.


title: South Sudan

text: The official language of South Sudan is English. All indigenous languages spoken in South Sudan are national languages of which Dinka, Nuer, Murle, Luo, Ma'di, Otuho, and Zande are the most widely spoken.


title: South Sudan

text: It has been proposed that Swahili be made a second official language, and it has been added to the curriculum to be taught at schools in South Sudan since they are part of the East African Community.


title: South Sudan

text: There are over 60 indigenous languages, most classified under the Nilo-Saharan Language family; collectively, they represent two of the first-order divisions of Nile Sudanic and Central Sudanic.


title: South Sudan

text: The interim constitution of 2005 declared in Part 1, Chapter 1, No. 6 (1) that "[a]ll indigenous languages of Southern Sudan are national languages and shall be respected, developed and promoted." In Part 1, Chapter 1, No. 6 (2), it was stated that "English and Arabic shall be the official working languages at the level of the governments of Southern Sudan and the States as well as languages of instruction for higher education."


title: South Sudan

text: The government of the new independent state later removed Arabic as an official language and chose English as the sole official language.


title: South Sudan

text: The new transitional constitution of the Republic of South Sudan of 2011 declares in Part 1, Chapter 1, No. 6 (1) that "[a]ll indigenous languages of South Sudan are national languages and shall be respected, developed and promoted." In Part 1, Chapter 1, No. 6 (2), it is defined that "English shall be the official working language in the Republic of South Sudan, as well as the language of instruction at all levels of education."


title: South Sudan

text: On 6 July 2017, South Sudan stated that it might adopt Swahili as an additional official language due to its seeking Tanzania's help to send Swahili teachers to the country as it introduces the language in school curriculum ahead of its possible adoption as an official language.


title: South Sudan

text: In the border region between Western Bahr el Ghazal state and Sudan are an indeterminate number of people from West African countries who settled here on their way back from Mecca – who have assumed a traditionally nomadic life – that resides either seasonally or permanently. They primarily speak Chadian languages and their traditional territories are in the southern portions of the Sudanese regions of Northern Kurdufan and Darfur.


title: South Sudan

text: In the capital, Juba, there are several thousand people who use non-classical Arabic, usually a pidgin called Juba Arabic, but South Sudan's ambassador to Kenya said on 2 August 2011 that Swahili will be introduced in South Sudan with the goal of supplanting Arabic as a "lingua franca", in keeping with the country's intention of orientation toward the East African Community rather than Sudan and the Arab League. Nevertheless, South Sudan submitted an application to join the Arab League as a member state on 25 March 2014, which is still pending. In an interview with the newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, the Foreign Minister of South Sudan Deng Alor Kuol said: South Sudan is the closest African country to the Arab world, and we speak a special kind of Arabic known as Juba Arabic. Sudan supports South Sudan's request to join the Arab League. Juba Arabic is a lingua franca in South Sudan.


title: South Sudan

text: The "Fifth Population and Housing Census of Sudan", for Sudan as a whole, was conducted in April 2008. The census counted the Southern Sudan population at 8.26 million; However, Southern Sudanese officials rejected the census results of Southern Sudan because "the central bureau of statistics in Khartoum refused to share the national Sudan raw census data with the southern Sudan centre for census, statistics and evaluation."


title: South Sudan

text: In addition, President Kiir "suspected figures were being deflated in some regions and inflated in others, and that made the final tally 'unacceptable'." He claimed that the Southern Sudanese population actually constituted one-third of that of Sudan, though the census showed it to be only 22%.


title: South Sudan

text: Many southern Sudanese were also said to have been uncounted "due to bad weather, poor communication and transport networks, and some areas were unreachable, while many southern Sudanese remained in exile in neighbouring countries, leading to 'unacceptable results', according [to] southern Sudanese authorities." The chief American technical adviser for the census in the south said that the census-takers probably reached only 89% of the population.


title: South Sudan

text: In 2009, Sudan initiated a Southern Sudanese census ahead of the 2011 independence referendum, which would also include the South Sudanese diaspora; however, this initiative was criticised for leaving out countries with a high share of the South Sudanese diaspora, rather counting countries where the diaspora share was low.


title: South Sudan

text: Religions followed by the South Sudanese include traditional indigenous religions, Christianity and Islam. The last census to mention the religion of southerners dates back to 1956 where a majority were classified as following traditional beliefs or were Christian while 18% were Muslim. Scholarly and some U.S. Department of State sources state that a majority of southern Sudanese maintain traditional indigenous (sometimes referred to as animist) beliefs with those following Christianity in a minority. However, according to the U.S. State Department's International Religious Freedom Report of 2012 the majority of the population adhere to Christianity, while reliable statistics on animist and Muslim belief are not available.


title: South Sudan

text: The Federal Research Division of the US Library of Congress states that "in the early 1990s possibly no more than 10% of southern Sudan's population was Christian". In the early 1990s, official records of Sudan claimed that the population of what was then included as South Sudan, 25% of people followed traditional religions and 5% were Christians. However, some news reports claim a Christian majority.


title: South Sudan

text: According to the "World Christian Encyclopedia", the Catholic Church is the largest single Christian body in Sudan since 1995, with 2.7 million Catholics mainly concentrated in South Sudan. The US Episcopal Church claims the existence of large numbers of Anglican adherents from the Episcopal Church of the Sudan with 2 million members in 2005. The Presbyterian Church in Sudan is the third largest denomination in Southern Sudan. It has about one million members in 500 congregations in 2012.


title: South Sudan

text: A 18 December 2012 report on religion and public life by the Pew Research Center states that in 2010, 60.5% of South Sudan's population was Christian, 32.9% were followers of traditional African religion and 6.2% were Muslim. Some publishers described the conflicts prior to partition as a Muslim-Christian war, but others reject this notion, claiming Muslim and Christian sides sometimes overlapped.


title: South Sudan

text: Speaking at St Theresa Cathedral in Juba, South Sudanese President Kiir, a Roman Catholic, said that South Sudan would be a nation that respects freedom of religion. Amongst Christians, most are Catholic or Anglican, though other denominations are also active, and animist beliefs are often blended with Christian beliefs.


title: South Sudan

text: In 2022 the new Catholic bishop of Rumbek, Christian Carlassare, stated that "More than half the population of South Sudan is Christian, only 8% are Muslim. Other groups live on the margins, and have not drawn close to the Gospel. However, we live in a country where Christianity is often no more than skin deep, it hasn’t grown roots in the life of the population".


title: South Sudan

text: The South Sudanese diaspora consists of citizens of South Sudan residing abroad. The number of South Sudanese outside South Sudan has sharply increased since the beginning of the struggle for independence from the Sudan. Almost one and a half million South Sudanese have left the country as refugees, either permanently or as temporary workforce, leading to the establishment of the South Sudanese diaspora population.


title: South Sudan

text: The largest communities of the South Sudanese diaspora are located in North America, Western Europe, and Oceania are in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and small communities exist in France, Italy, Germany, Sweden, and New Zealand.


title: South Sudan

text: Activist Achol Jok Mach has spoken out about growing up and growing up in a diaspora community and the effect on her identity, saying: "I was only ever told, "You are South Sudanese"... It was only much later that I learned I was Dinka."


title: South Sudan

text: Due to the many years of civil war, South Sudan's culture is heavily influenced by its neighbours. Many South Sudanese fled to Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda where they interacted with the nationals and learned their languages and culture. Most of those who remained in Sudan until or after independence partially assimilated to Sudanese culture and speak Juba Arabic or Sudanese Arabic.


title: South Sudan

text: Most South Sudanese value knowing one's tribal origin, its traditional culture and dialect even while in exile and diaspora. Although the common languages spoken are Juba Arabic and English, Swahili might be introduced to the population to improve the country's relations with its East African neighbours.


title: South Sudan

text: Many music artists from South Sudan use English, Swahili, Juba Arabic, their African language or a mix of all. Popular artists like Barbz, Yaba Angelosi, De Peace Child sing Afro-beat, R&B, and Zouk; Dynamq is popular for his reggae releases; and Emmanuel Kembe who sings folk, reggae and Afro-beat. Also hip hop artists like Emmanuel Jal, FTG Metro, Flizzame and Dugga Mulla (of FMG). Emmanuel being one of the South Sudaneses music artist's who have broken through on an international level with his unique form of hip hop and a positive message in his lyrics. Jal, a former child soldier turned musician, received good airplay and album reviews in the UK and has also been sought out for the lecture circuit with major talks at popular talkfests like TED.


title: South Sudan

text: Many traditional and modern games and sports are popular in South Sudan, particularly wrestling and mock battles. The traditional sports were mainly played after the harvest seasons to celebrate the harvests and finish the farming seasons. During the matches, they smeared themselves with ochre – perhaps to enhance the grip or heighten their perception. The matches attracted large numbers of spectators who sang, played drums and danced in support of their favourite wrestlers. Though these were perceived as competition, they were primarily for entertainment.


title: South Sudan

text: Association football is also becoming popular in South Sudan, and there are many initiatives by the Government of South Sudan and other partners to promote the sport and improve the level of play. One of these initiatives is South Sudan Youth Sports Association (SSYSA). SSYSA is already holding football clinics in Konyokonyo and Muniki areas of Juba in which young boys are coached. In recognition of these efforts with youth football, the country recently hosted the CECAFA youth football competitions. Barely a month earlier, it had also hosted the larger East African Schools Sports tournaments.


title: South Sudan

text: The South Sudan national association football team joined the Confederation of African Football in February 2012 and became a full FIFA member in May 2012. The team played its first match against Tusker FC of the Kenyan Premier League on 10 July 2011 in Juba as part of independence celebrations, scoring early but losing 1–3 to the more experienced team. Famous South Sudanese footballers are James Moga, Richard Justin, Athir Thomas, Goma Genaro Awad, Khamis Leyano, Khamis Martin, William Afani Clicks and Roy Gulwak.


title: South Sudan

text: The South Sudanese can boast links to top basketball players. Luol Deng was a National Basketball Association star in the United States; at the international level, he represented Great Britain. Other leading international basketball players from South Sudan include Manute Bol, Kueth Duany, Deng Gai, Ater Majok, Wenyen Gabriel, and Thon Maker. The South Sudan national basketball team played its first match against the Uganda national basketball team on 10 July 2011 in Juba.


title: South Sudan

text: One athlete from South Sudan, Guor Marial, competed in the 2012 Summer Olympics. Due to South Sudan not as yet possessing an official Olympics organization, and Marial not yet possessing American citizenship, he, along with three athletes from the former Netherlands Antilles, competed under the banner of Independent Olympic Athletes.


title: South Sudan

text: On 2 August at the 128th IOC Session, South Sudan was granted full recognition of its National Olympic Committee. South Sudan competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics with three athletes in track and field. No medals were won during this Olympics.


title: South Sudan

text: The economy of South Sudan is one of the world's most underdeveloped with South Sudan having little existing infrastructure and the highest maternal mortality and female illiteracy rates in the world . South Sudan exports timber to the international market. The region also contains many natural resources such as petroleum, iron ore, copper, chromium ore, zinc, tungsten, mica, silver, gold, diamonds, hardwoods, limestone and hydropower. The country's economy, as in many other developing countries, is heavily dependent on agriculture.


title: South Sudan

text: Other than natural resources-based companies, other such organisations include Southern Sudan Beverages Limited, a subsidiary of SABMiller.


title: South Sudan

text: The oilfields in the south have been significant to the economy since the latter part of the 20th century. South Sudan has the third-largest oil reserves in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, after South Sudan became an independent nation in July 2011, southern and northern negotiators were not immediately able to reach an agreement on how to split the revenue from these southern oilfields.


title: South Sudan

text: It is estimated that South Sudan has around 4 times the oil deposits of Sudan. The oil revenues, according to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), were split equally for the duration of the agreement period. Since South Sudan relies on pipelines, refineries, and Port Sudan's facilities in Red Sea state in Sudan, the agreement stated that the government of Sudan in Khartoum would receive a 50% share of all oil revenues. This arrangement was maintained during the second period of autonomy from 2005 to 2011.


title: South Sudan

text: In the run up to independence, northern negotiators reportedly pressed for a deal maintaining the 50–50 split of oil revenues, while the South Sudanese were holding out for more favorable terms. Oil revenues constitute more than 98% of the government of South Sudan's budget according to the southern government's Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning and this has amounted to more than $8 billion in revenue since the signing of the peace agreement.


title: South Sudan

text: After independence, South Sudan objected to Sudan charging US$34 per barrel to transport oil through the pipeline to the oil terminal at Port Sudan. With production of around 30,000 barrels per day, this was costing over a million dollars per day. In January 2012, South Sudan suspended oil production, causing a dramatic reduction in revenue and food costs to rise by 120%. In 2017, Nile Drilling & Services became South Sudan's first locally owned and run petroleum drilling company.


title: South Sudan

text: China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) is a major investor in South Sudan's oil sector. South Sudan's economy is under pressure to diversify away from oil as oil reserves will likely halve by 2020 if no new finds are made, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).


title: South Sudan

text: In terms of South Sudan's external debt, Sudan and South Sudan maintain a shared debt of approximately US$38 billion, all of which has accumulated throughout the past five decades. Though a small portion of this debt is owed to such international institutions as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (approximately US$5.3 billion according to a 2009 report provided by the Bank of Sudan), the bulk of its debt load is actually owed to numerous foreign actors that have provided the nation with financial loans, including the Paris Club (over US$11 billion) and also non-Paris Club bilateral creditors (over US$13 billion).


title: South Sudan

text: The Paris Club refers to an informal group of financial officials from 19 of the world's most influential economies, including such member nations as the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Canada, while non-Paris Club bilateral creditors refers to any entity that does not enjoy permanent/associated status as a Paris Club member. Private bilateral creditors (i.e. private commercial banks and private credit suppliers) account for the majority of the remainder (approximately US$6 billion of the total debt).


title: South Sudan

text: The presidents of Kenya and Rwanda invited the Autonomous Government of Southern Sudan to apply for membership to the East African Community upon the independence of South Sudan in 2011, and South Sudan was reportedly an applicant country as of mid-July 2011. Analysts suggested that South Sudan's early efforts to integrate infrastructure, including rail links and oil pipelines, with systems in Kenya and Uganda indicated intention on the part of Juba to pivot away from dependence on Sudan and toward the EAC.


title: South Sudan

text: On 17 September 2011, the "Daily Nation" quoted a South Sudanese MP as saying that while his government was eager to join the EAC, it would likely delay its membership over concerns that its economy was not sufficiently developed to compete with EAC member states and could become a "dumping ground" for Kenyan, Tanzanian, and Ugandan exports. This was contradicted by President Salva Kiir, who announced South Sudan had officially embarked on the application process one month later. The application was initially deferred by the EAC in December 2012, and incidents with Ugandan boda-boda operators in South Sudan created political tension.


title: South Sudan

text: In December 2012, Tanzania officially agreed to South Sudan's bid to join the EAC, clearing the way for the world's newest state to become the regional bloc's sixth member. In May 2013, the EAC set aside $82,000 for the admission process. Starting after the EAC Council of Ministers meeting in August 2013, was projected to take at least four years. At the 14th Ordinary Summit held in Nairobi in 2012, EAC heads of state approved the verification report that was presented by the Council of Ministers, then directed it to start the negotiation process with South Sudan.


title: South Sudan

text: A team was formed to assess South Sudan's bid; however, in April 2014, the nation requested a delay in the admissions process, presumably due to South Sudanese Civil War.


title: South Sudan

text: South Sudan's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Barnaba Marial Benjamin, claimed publicly in October 2015 that, following unpublished evaluations and meetings of a special technical committee in May, June, August, September and October, the committee has recommended that South Sudan be allowed to join the East African Community.


title: South Sudan

text: South Sudan was eventually approved for membership in East African Community in March 2016, and formally acceded with the signature of the treaty in April 2016.


title: South Sudan

text: South Sudan has applied to join the Commonwealth of Nations, considering that South Sudan was part of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and has 2 republics in the Commonwealth of Nations, Kenya and Uganda as neighbouring countries.


title: South Sudan

text: South Sudan has of single-track gauge railway line from the Sudanese border to Wau terminus. There are proposed extensions from Wau to Juba. There are also plans to link Juba with the Kenyan and Ugandan railway networks.


title: South Sudan

text: The busiest and most developed airport in South Sudan is Juba Airport, which has regular international connections to Asmara, Entebbe, Nairobi, Cairo, Addis Ababa, and Khartoum. Juba Airport was also the home base of Feeder Airlines Company and Southern Star Airlines.


title: South Sudan

text: Other international airports include Malakal, with international flights to Addis Ababa and Khartoum; Wau, with weekly service to Khartoum; and Rumbek, also with weekly flights to Khartoum. Southern Sudan Airlines also serves Nimule and Akobo, which have unpaved runways. Several smaller airports exist throughout South Sudan, the majority consisting of little more than dirt runways.


title: South Sudan

text: On 4 April 2012, plans were unveiled to launch a South Sudanese national airline, primarily for domestic service at first but eventually expanding to international service.


title: South Sudan

text: According to the United Nations, there are 8.3 million people in need of humanitarian aid in South Sudan as of January 2021. South Sudan is acknowledged to have some of the worst health indicators in the world. The under-five infant mortality rate is 135.3 per 1,000, whilst maternal mortality is the highest in the world at 2,053.9 per 100,000 live births. In 2004, there were only three surgeons serving in southern Sudan, with three proper hospitals, and in some areas there was just one doctor for every 500,000 people.


title: South Sudan

text: The epidemiology of HIV/AIDS in the South Sudan is poorly documented but the prevalence is believed around 3.1%. According to a 2013 study, South Sudan "probably has the highest malaria burden in sub-Saharan Africa". South Sudan is one of the few countries where dracunculiasis still occurs.


title: South Sudan

text: At the time of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005, humanitarian needs in Southern Sudan were massive. However, humanitarian organizations under the leadership of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) managed to ensure sufficient funding to bring relief to the local populations. Along with recovery and development aid, humanitarian projects were included in the 2007 Work Plan of the United Nations and partners. More than 90% of the population of South Sudan live on less than $1 a day, despite the GDP per capita of the entirety of Sudan being $1200 ($3.29/day).


title: South Sudan

text: In 2007, the United Nations OCHA (under the leadership of Éliane Duthoit) decreased its involvement in Southern Sudan, as humanitarian needs gradually diminished, slowly but markedly turning over control to the recovery and development activities of NGOs and community-based organisations.


title: South Sudan

text: Famine reportedly led to deaths in Northern Bahr el Ghazal and Warrap states in mid-2011, though the state governments of both denied hunger there was severe enough to cause fatalities.


title: South Sudan

text: In Pibor County located in the Jonglei State, in December 2011 and January 2012, cattle raids led to border clashes that eventually resulted in widespread ethnic violence, with thousands of deaths and tens of thousands of South Sudanese being displaced, and hundreds of Médecins Sans Frontières staff went missing. The government declared the area a disaster zone and took control from local authorities. South Sudan has a very high rate of child marriage. Violence against women is common in the country, and South Sudan's laws and policies have been criticized as inadequate in offering protection.


title: South Sudan

text: The water supply in South Sudan is faced with numerous challenges. Although the White Nile runs through the country, water is scarce during the dry season in areas that are not located on the river.


title: South Sudan

text: About half the population does not have access to an improved water source, defined as a protected well, standpipe or a handpump within one kilometre. The few existing piped water supply systems are often not well maintained and the water they provide is often not safe to drink. Displaced people returning home put a huge strain on infrastructure, and the government institutions in charge of the sector are weak. Substantial external funding from numerous government agencies and non-governmental organizations is available to improve water supply.


title: South Sudan

text: Numerous non-governmental organizations support water supply in Southern Sudan, such as Water is Basic, Water for South Sudan, the Obakki Foundation and Bridgton-Lake Region Rotary Club from North America.


title: South Sudan

text: As of February 2014, South Sudan was host to over 230,000 refugees, with the vast majority, over 209,000, having arrived recently from Sudan, because of the War in Darfur. Other African countries that contribute the most refugees to South Sudan are the Central African Republic, Ethiopia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As a result of the war that erupted in December 2013, more than 2.3 million people – one in every five people in South Sudan – have been forced to flee their homes, including 1.66 million internally displaced people (with 53.4 per cent estimated to be children) and nearly 644,900 refugees in neighbouring countries. Some 185,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) have sought refuge in UN Protection of Civilians (PoC) sites, while around 90 percent of IDPs are on the run or sheltering outside PoC sites. Consequently, UNHCR is stepping up its response through an inter-agency collaborative approach under the leadership of the Humanitarian Coordinator, and working with the International Organization for Migration (IOM). In early February 2013, UNHCR started distributing relief items outside the UN base in Malakal, South Sudan, which was expected to reach 10,000 people.


title: South Sudan

text: On 20 February 2017 South Sudan and the United Nations declared a famine in parts of former Unity State, with the warning that it could spread rapidly without further action. Over 100,000 people were affected. The UN World Food Programme said that 40% of the population of South Sudan, 4.9 million people, need food urgently. U.N. officials said that President Salva Kiir Mayardit was blocking food deliveries to some areas. Furthermore, UNICEF warned that more than 1 million children in South Sudan were subjected to malnutrition.


title: Single-player video game

text: A single-player video game is a video game where input from only one player is expected throughout the course of the gaming session. A single-player game is usually a game that can only be played by one person, while "single-player mode" is usually a game mode designed to be played by a single player, though the game also contains multi-player modes.


title: Single-player video game

text: Most modern console games and arcade games are designed so that they can be played by a single player; although many of these games have modes that allow two or more players to play (not necessarily simultaneously), very few actually require more than one player for the game to be played. The "Unreal Tournament" series is one example of such.


title: Single-player video game

text: The earliest video games, such as "Tennis for Two" (1958), "Spacewar!" (1962), and "Pong" (1972), were symmetrical games designed to be played by two players. Single-player games gained popularity only after this, with early titles such as "Speed Race" (1974) and "Space Invaders" (1978).


title: Single-player video game

text: The reason for this, according to Raph Koster, is down to a combination of several factors: increasingly sophisticated computers and interfaces that enabled asymmetric gameplay, cooperative gameplay and story delivery within a gaming framework, coupled with the fact that the majority of early games players had introverted personality types (according to the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator).


title: Single-player video game

text: Although most modern games incorporate a single-player element either as the core or as one of several game modes, single-player gaming is currently viewed by the video game industry as peripheral to the future of gaming, with Electronic Arts vice president Frank Gibeau stating in 2012 that he had not approved one game to be developed as a single-player experience.


title: Single-player video game

text: The question of the financial viability of single-player AAA games was raised following the closure of Visceral Games by Electronic Arts (EA) in October 2017. Visceral had been a studio that established itself on a strong narrative single-player focus with "Dead Space", and had been working on a single-player, linear narrative "Star Wars" game at the time of the closure; EA announced following this that they would be taking the game in a different direction, specifically "a broader experience that allows for more variety and player agency". Many commentators felt that EA made the change as they did not have confidence that a studio with an AAA-scale budget could produce a viable single-player game based on the popular "Star Wars" franchise. Alongside this, as well as relatively poor sales of games in the year prior that were principally AAA single-player games ("Resident Evil 7", "Prey", "Dishonored 2", and "") against financially successful multiplayer games and those offer a games-as-a-service model ("Overwatch", "Destiny 2", and "Star Wars Battlefront 2"), were indicators to many that the single-player model for AAA was waning. Manveer Heir, who had left EA after finishing his gameplay design work for "Mass Effect Andromeda", acknowledged that the culture within EA was against the development of single-player games, and with Visceral's closure, "that the linear single-player triple-A game at EA is dead for the time being". Bethesda on December 7, 2017, decided to collaborate with Lynda Carter to launch a Public Safety Announcement to save single-player gaming.


title: Single-player video game

text: A few years later in 2021, EA was reported to have revived interest in single-player games, following the successful launch of "" in 2020. The company still planned on releasing live service games with multiplayer components, but began evaluating its IP catalog for more single-player titles to revive, such as a remake of the "Dead Space" franchise. Around the same time, head of Xbox Game Studios Phil Spencer said that they still see a place for narrative-driven single-player games even though the financial drivers of the market tended to be live service games. Spencer said that developing such games with AAA-scale budgets can be risky, but with availability of services like cloud gaming and subscription services, they can gauge audience reaction to these games early on and reduce the risk involved before releases.


title: Single-player video game

text: As the narrative and conflict in single-player gameplay is created by a computer rather than a human opponent, single-player games are able to deliver certain gaming experiences that are typically absent—or de-emphasised—in multiplayer games.


title: Single-player video game

text: Single-player games rely more heavily on compelling stories to draw the player into the experience and to create a sense of investment. Humans are unpredictable, so human players - allies or enemies - cannot be relied upon to carry a narrative in a particular direction, and so multiplayer games tend not to focus heavily on a linear narrative. By contrast, many single-player games are built around a compelling story.


title: Single-player video game

text: While a multi-player game relies upon human-human interaction for its conflict, and often for its sense of camaraderie, a single-player game must build these things artificially. As such, single-player games require deeper characterisation of their non-player characters in order to create connections between the player and the sympathetic characters and to develop deeper antipathy towards the game's antagonists. This is typically true of role-playing games (RPGs), such as "Dragon Quest" and the "Final Fantasy", which are primarily character-driven.


title: Single-player video game

text: These game elements are not firm, fixed rules; single-player puzzle games such as "Tetris" or racing games focus squarely on gameplay.


title: Latin script

text: The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern Italy (Magna Grecia). It was adopted by the Etruscans and subsequently by the Romans. Several Latin-script alphabets exist, which differ in graphemes, collation and phonetic values from the classical Latin alphabet.


title: Latin script

text: The Latin script is the basis of the International Phonetic Alphabet, and the 26 most widespread letters are the letters contained in the ISO basic Latin alphabet.


title: Latin script

text: most widely adopted writing system in the world. Latin script is used as the standard method of writing for most Western and Central, and some Eastern, European languages as well as many languages in other parts of the world.