Interactive map: Sudan

With southern Sudan poised to become an independent state after last month’s referendum showed overwhelming support for independence, the disparities between the north and south of Africa’s largest country are coming into sharp relief.

The distribution and potential division of Sudan’s oil revenue is of particular concern. Oil accounted for 60 per cent of the Sudanese government’s revenues and 95 per cent of exports in 2008. Oil accounts for about 98 per cent of south Sudan’s revenues.

The proposed border, 20 per cent of which is still disputed, runs through various oil-rich regions. Foreign investors in Sudanese oilfields, notably China’s state-owned China National Petrolium Corporation, could find themselves caught in the middle.

China is Sudan’s biggest trading partner, accounting for 58 per cent of Sudan’s exports and 21 per cent of imports in 2009. Sudan, meanwhile, is China’s third-largest trading partner in Africa.

Around 80 per cent of Sudanese oil is in the south, but the port used to ship it abroad is in the north, fed by a pipeline. But this dynamic could be transformed if a proposal by Toyota Tsusho, the trading arm of the Japanese carmaker, to build an additional pipeline from southern Sudan to a new oil export terminal on the Kenyan coast, is realised.

Use the menus in the map below to see the distribution of Sudan’s oil and transport infrastructure.