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Why Darfur is five states, and what that means for counting

Why Darfur is five states, and what that means for counting

لماذا دارفور خمس ولايات وماذا يعني ذلك للإحصاء

Darfur was one province, then three states in 1994, then five in 2012 when Central and East Darfur were carved out. Together they hold around nine million people across an area larger than Spain.

Each split rebased the statistics. Time series that looked continuous suddenly were not, because boundaries moved underneath them. East Darfur's history before 2012, for instance, is really a slice of South Darfur's.

Add two decades of conflict and displacement, and Darfur has the weakest numbers in Sudan. We show them with that caveat attached, because a map with a blank west would be worse.

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