This paper deals with the creation, growth and current decline of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, since the early nineteenth century. It describes the distinct ways in which the two main settlements in the conurbation — Umm-Durman and Khartoum — have been planned, the former along Arab-Islamic lines and the latter as a British Colonial town. After independence in 1956, the capital enjoyed a prominent, if brief, period of flourish in most aspects of life. In the mid-1970s chaos set in. The `deplanning’ process was initially prompted by various motives and, since the early 1980s, has gradually been institutionalised. The positive planning features were obliterated after the town planning machinery was marginalised and almost dismantled. The once-beautiful town was vulgarised, vandalised, ruralised and `censored’ by the state under various labels and excuses. But towns, we know, have their own ways of saying things and it is all the more interesting when what the town says is in direct opposition to what the state officially declares. This paper tries to document the `deplanning’ of Khartoum by interpreting the messages the town sends, tracing the symptoms of this process and suggesting remedies for what has not been irretrievably lost.