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ISO 3166
SS
Main language + region
ar-SS
Currency
SSP · South Sudanese Pound
Region
not grouped

South Sudan

South Sudan has 12.7M people, and 847.5K of them are online. Arabic is the most widely spoken language at 27%, one of 3 languages CLDR lists here. English is official nationally. A product shipping here defaults to ar-SS.

English

Market summary

Each figure carries its own world scale, so it reads without a second market beside it.

People online

847.5K

0%world median 81%100%

7% of 12.7M people use the internet, per the World Bank's 2019 figure. Estimated by multiplying CLDR population by that share.

Income per person

$1,080

Higher than 8% of 213 territories

GDP per capita in current US dollars, World Bank Open Data, most recent reported year. A rough guide to spending power, not revenue.

Can pay online

6%

0%world median 71%100%

Adults aged 15 and over holding a bank or mobile-money account, World Bank Global Findex 2021. Below half means a card-only checkout excludes most of the market.

Languages

3

Arabic 27% · English 27% · Nuer 5.6%

Languages CLDR records here with a share of 0.1% or more. 1 of them is official nationally.

English proficiency

—

Not in the EF EPI 2025 table. Absent is not the same as low.

Adult literacy

27%

0%world median 95%100%

Share of adults who can read, as recorded in CLDR territory data. Low literacy shifts a product toward icons, audio, and video before another language.

What people speak

Shares include second languages, so totals can exceed 100%.

Most spoken in South Sudan

share of 12.7M people

Filled bars are nationally official languages. Bars are scaled to the largest language rather than to 100%.

CLDR records Arabic in 34 territories and 378.6M speakers in total; South Sudan holds 1% of them, and the rest come with the same translation. The Arabic profile maps the whole footprint.

Day-one requirements

What the interface needs for the main language spoken here (ar-SS).

Plural categories

6

Word-forms a translator writes for counted text ("1 item", "5 items"). More than English's two, so counted strings carry extra variants.

Script family

Arabic

Bundle a Noto-class webfont that covers this script. OS defaults vary.

Reading direction

Right-to-left

Use logical CSS properties (padding-inline-start, etc.). Wrap interpolated LTR with <bdi> or FSI/PDI.

Date

٢١ أبريل ٢٠٢٦

Short: ٢١‏/٤‏/٢٠٢٦

Time

٦:٣٠ م

Week starts Mon

Currency

‏١٬٢٣٤٫٥٦ £

1,234.56 in SSP · South Sudanese Pound

Engineering note · Arabic. 6 plural categories. Bidi work required.

The engineering behind the flags: Bidirectional text: why the dollar sign wanders in an RTL string · RTL layouts: what flips and what doesn't · Font fallback: why the OS picks the wrong glyphs for this script · Plural rules: why each category needs its own translation