Country record
Born in South Sudan: the life the odds give you
The chance of being born in South Sudan is 1 in 402 — 0.249% of the 132.1 million babies born worldwide in 2023.
Formula: 328,308 births in South Sudan in 2023 ÷ 132,110,261 births worldwide in 2023
UN World Population Prospects 2024, medium variant
Life expectancy and survival
A child born in South Sudan in 2023 could expect 57.6 years. The world figure that year was 70.3.
Female born in South Sudan in 2023: 60.6 years. Male born in South Sudan in 2023: 54.6 years. −12.6 years compared with the world figure.
Where the deaths fall
Of 1,000 babies born in South Sudan in 2023, this many have died by each age.
- Median age at death
- 67.1
- Share reaching 65
- 5,362.0%
Survive to 20 here, and your chance of reaching 65 is 62.9%.
Formula: l(65) ÷ l(20)
| Age | Deaths per 1,000 born, by age band |
|---|---|
| 0–1 | 63.8 / 1,000 |
| 1–5 | 35.4 / 1,000 |
| 5–15 | 33.5 / 1,000 |
| 15–50 | 168.5 / 1,000 |
| 50–65 | 162.6 / 1,000 |
| 65–80 | 326.7 / 1,000 |
| 80–100 | 208.9 / 1,000 |
How the 1 in 402 is calculated
Two published numbers, one division.
| Value | Year |
|---|---|
| Births in South Sudan, 2023 | 328,308 |
| Births worldwide, 2023 | 132,110,261 |
| Share of world births | 0.2485% |
| The odds | 1 in 402 |
Why this differs from numbers you may have seen elsewhere
Two things change the answer: which year you use, and whether the denominator is births or people alive. We use births in the same year as the numerator, over all 237 locations the UN publishes. A figure sampled over people alive answers a different question — the odds a living person is from that country — and will always be larger for large countries.
The weights used for sampling sum to 132,110,261 births, so no location is silently excluded.
Childhood
99.1 of every 1,000 children born in South Sudan die before their fifth birthday.
- That is about 1 in 10.
- 99.1 / 1,000
- Infant mortality: 63.8 per 1,000 live births.
- 63.8 / 1,000
- Share reaching their 15th birthday: 8,673.0%.
- 8,673.0%
- Total fertility rate
- 3.86
World Bank World Development Indicators, 2023.
The past: 1950 to 2023
Life expectancy in South Sudan has moved +27.4 years since 1950, when it was 30.2.
South Sudan crossed 50 years of life expectancy in 2003.
Life expectancy at birth
Births per year
Births in South Sudan peaked at 429,073 in 2014. In 2023 there were 328,308.
Play a life born here in 1970Cause of death
Of all deaths recorded in South Sudan in 2023, this is how they divide.
| Cause of death | Value |
|---|---|
| Communicable, maternal, perinatal and nutritional | 61.5% |
| Non-communicable | 28.2% |
| Injuries | 10.3% |
World Bank WDI, WHO-origin cause-of-death shares, 2019.
Where South Sudan sits
Birth Lottery Index
A girl born in South Sudan in 2023 sits at the 7th percentile of the world's life-expectancy distribution, weighting every country by its own births.
Formula: the birth-weighted share of the 237 locations whose female life expectancy is at or below 57.62 years.
- Rank by births: 69 of 237.
- 328,308
- Rank by life expectancy: 233 of 237.
- 57.6
- Rank by under-5 mortality: 233 of 237.
- 99.1
Population and migration
- Population
- 11,483,374 (2023)
- Median age
- 18.0 years (2023)
- Urban share
- 21.1 % (2023)
- Population density
- 20.4 /km² (2023)
- Net migration
- 455,000 (2023)
Nearby and similar countries
Other locations in Eastern Africa, and one with a similar life expectancy.
Frequently asked questions
- What are the odds of being born in South Sudan?
- 402 of being born here. in 2023 — 328,308 of the 132,110,261 babies born worldwide that year.
- How long does a child born in South Sudan live?
- Life expectancy at birth in 2023 was 57.6 years: 60.6 for girls and 54.6 for boys. That is a population average, not a promise to any individual.
- What is child mortality like in South Sudan?
- 99.1 of every 1,000 children die before their fifth birthday, which is about 1 in 10.
- Can I play a life born in South Sudan?
- Yes — the button at the top of this page draws a birth in South Sudan, and you can choose any year from 1950 to 2023.
- Where does this page's data come from?
- UN World Population Prospects 2024 for births, population, and life tables; World Bank World Development Indicators for income, urbanisation, education, and cause-of-death composition. Every figure names its year.
Data and licence
The figures on this page are derived from the Eighth Billion dataset v1.
Source data is used under its publishers' licences and attributed on every page that displays it.
Play a life born in South Sudan
Pick a year between 1950 and 2023, or let it be drawn.
Play a life born in South SudanEighth Billion simulates the odds of a birth. It does not predict any person's life, health, or lifespan.