• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

What’s The World’s Newest Country?

April 28, 2025 by Deborah Bloomfield

It’s easy to think of countries as having been around for a long time, but many of the world’s nations are yet to have even reached 100. In fact, the youngest that’s most widely recognized, South Sudan, is only just about to turn 14 – but it might soon lose its title for “world’s newest country”.

The newest country in the world…

South Sudan – officially known as the Republic of South Sudan – became a country on July 9, 2011, seceding from Sudan after a referendum in January of the same year. That vote saw 99 percent of South Sudanese people polled voting for independence from the north.

At that point, the young republic became a landlocked nation approximately 644,329 square kilometers (248,777 square miles) in size, just a smidge (about 50,000 square kilometers) smaller than Texas. It’s bordered by Sudan to the north (with a border region known as the Abeyi Area claimed by both), Ethiopia to the east, Kenya, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the south, and the Central African Republic to the West.

South Sudan is also young not just in its age as an independent state, but in terms of its population. The country is home to around 12,703,714 people, the average age of whom is just 18.7 years old. In fact, just over 42 percent of the South Sudanese population is under the age of 14; in comparison, only 18 percent of the US population sits within that same age bracket.

…but for how long?

While South Sudan is currently the newest country in the world, it might soon have that title taken away from it by a place nearly 14,000 kilometers (8,700 miles) away: Bougainville.

Officially known as the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, this region is currently still part of Papua New Guinea, an island country in the Pacific Ocean that itself only became independent in 1975. Activists attempted to declare Bougainville an independent nation at the same time, but were unsuccessful in gaining recognition.

Conflict then arose in the late 1980s between the Bougainville Revolutionary Army and the Papua New Guinea Defence Force over the operation of the large Panguna copper mine, later escalating into a full-blown civil war. An estimated 15,000 to 20,000 were killed during the conflict, which eventually came to an end with the signing of the Bougainville Peace Agreement in 2001.

As part of that deal, Bougainville was to establish an autonomous government, and later a referendum on independence. That referendum finally took place in 2019 – and nearly 98 percent of Bougainvilleans voted “yes” for independence.

However, Bougainville is yet to become its own nation. The earliest time it could happen, according to an agreement between the leaders of Bougainville and Papua New Guinea, is this year, and the latest, 2027. Exactly when independence will happen – and what it’ll look like when it does – is still very much on the table.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Garcia jumps back into action after Ryder Cup letdown
  2. NASA’s Artemis I Will Make History This Weekend – Here’s How To Watch Live
  3. 1.2-Million-Year-Old Obsidian Axe Factory Found In Ethiopia
  4. Nuclear Football: Who Actually Has The Nuclear Launch Codes?

Source Link: What’s The World’s Newest Country?

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • 15 Years Ago, Bees In Brooklyn Appeared Red After Snacking Where They Shouldn’t
  • Carnian Pluvial Event: It Rained For 2 Million Years — And It Changed Planet Earth Forever
  • There’s Volcanic Unrest At The Campi Flegrei Caldera – Here’s What We Know
  • The “Rumpelstiltskin Effect”: When Just Getting A Diagnosis Is Enough To Start The Healing
  • In 1962, A Boy Found A Radioactive Capsule And Brought It Inside His House — With Tragic Results
  • This Cute Creature Has One Of The Largest Genomes Of Any Mammal, With 114 Chromosomes
  • Little Air And Dramatic Evolutionary Changes Await Future Humans On Mars
  • “Black Hole Stars” Might Solve Unexplained JWST Discovery
  • Pretty In Purple: Why Do Some Otters Have Purple Teeth And Bones? It’s All Down To Their Spiky Diets
  • The World’s Largest Carnivoran Is A 3,600-Kilogram Giant That Weighs More Than Your Car
  • Devastating “Rogue Waves” Finally Have An Explanation
  • Meet The “Masked Seducer”, A Unique Bat With A Never-Before-Seen Courtship Display
  • Alaska’s Salmon River Is Turning Orange – And It’s A Stark Warning
  • Meet The Heaviest Jelly In The Seas, Weighing Over Twice As Much As A Grand Piano
  • For The First Time, We’ve Found Evidence Climate Change Is Attracting Invasive Species To Canadian Arctic
  • What Are Microfiber Cloths, And How Do They Clean So Well?
  • Stowaway Rat That Hopped On A Flight From Miami Was A “Wake-Up Call” For Global Health
  • Andromeda, Solar Storms, And A 1 Billion Pixel Image Crowned Best Astrophotos Of The Year
  • New Island Emerges In Alaska As Glacier Rapidly Retreats, NASA Satellite Imagery Shows
  • With A New Drug Cocktail, Scientists May Have Finally Found Flu’s Universal Weak Spot
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version