Pariang town, Unity (Wihda) State, Sudan

November 27, 1999 & October 18, 2000
The town of Pariang is the main town of this district in Unity State. Its population is variously estimated at between 10,000 people and many times that number resulting from the very recent movement of persons into town from surrounding areas - because of both forced relocation and flight from fighting.

In the Landsat image, below, from November 27, 1999, Pariang appears as an irregular white area in the lower right. A road leads directly from Pariang to the west (left) to El Toor and other oil fields.

The Ikonos satellite collects data at 15 times the resolution or detail of that collected by Landsat. Select the highlighted areas in this image to see the full quality of the Ikonos data from October 18, 2000.

January 18, 1967
Below is a black and white view of this same area in January 1967. This picture comes from a recently declassified photograph taken by the U.S. intelligence satellite code-named Corona. This image shows the area long before both oil exploration and the current armed struggles in this region of Sudan. The visual differences between the two images can be attributed to both long term changes in settlement and seasonal changes in the land cover. The 1999 image shows the area at the end of the rainy season. The 1967 image is from the dry season.

The 1967 image appears 'crisper' because the ground spatial resolution for the Corona camera was much higher than that of the Landsat sensors. The two highlighted areas can be selected to view close-ups both of Pariang and an area three miles to its northwest showing clear evidence of settlement.

return to context satellite image