About Ethiopia
Ethiopia is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It has the continent’s second highest population at 109,358,444 and its surface area of 1,100,000 sq. km. is the tenth largest. Addis Ababa is the capital and the country is bordered by Sudan to the west, Djibouti and Somalia to the east, Kenya to the south, and Eritrea to the north.
When the European powers divided the African continent at the Berlin Conference, Ethiopia was one of two countries that retained its independence. It was one of four African members of the League of Nations. It became a member of the United Nations after a brief period of Italian occupation. Several newly independent African nations took Ethiopia’s colors for their flags. Addis Ababa was the center of several international groups focused on Africa.
The current borders result from territorial reduction in the north and expansion in the south. This expansion was completed through conquest as well as migrations. In 1974, civil wars intensified after Haile Selassie was overthrown. It is one of the Non-Aligned Movements founding members as well as the G-77 and the Organization of African Unity. Addis Ababa is the headquarters of the African Union, UNECA, and the Nile Basin Commission. Ethiopia also has one of Africa’s most powerful militaries. It has its own alphabet, time system, and calendar. The country’s UNESCO World Heritage sites are the most in Africa.
The land is varied and contains waterfalls as well as volcanic hot springs. It has some of Africa’s tallest mountains and lowest points. Africa’s largest cave, Sof Omar, is in Ethiopia. One of the world’s hottest places is located at Dallol. 80 ethnic groups live in Ethiopia today. Oromo and Amhara are the two largest. Ethiopia is famous for being the place where the coffee bean originated. It is also known for its gold medalists and its rock-hewn churches. Ethiopia is the top honey and coffee producer in Africa and has the largest livestock population in Africa.
Ethiopia has ties with the three main Abrahamic religions. It officially adopted Christianity as its religion in the 4th century. While it still has a Christian majority, one third of the people are now Muslim. It has the oldest Muslim settlement in Africa at Negash and was the site of Islam’s first hijra. There were a substantial number of Jews in Ethiopia until the 1980s. The Rastafarian religion claims Ethiopia as its spiritual homeland. Ethiopia has the second largest hydropower potential in Africa and is the source of 85 percent of the Nile River’s flow. Despite this it underwent a series of famines in the 1980′s resulting in potentially millions of deaths. The economy has slowly recovered and is now East Africa’s largest and one of the world’s fastest growing economies. Politically, the country is still fragile.
