Welcome to Ethiopia

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Description

Ethiopia is in east-central Africa, bordered on the west by the Sudan, the east by Somalia and Djibouti, the south by Kenya, and the northeast by Eritrea. It has several high mountains, the highest of which is Ras Dashan at 15,158 ft (4,620 m). The Blue Nile, or Abbai, rises in the northwest and flows in a great semicircle before entering the Sudan. Its chief reservoir, Lake Tana, lies in the northwest.

Apart from Eritrea to the north, Ethiopia is bordered by Sudan to the west, Kenya to the south, Djibouti to the northeast, and Somalia to the east. Ethiopia is one of the oldest nations in the world. It has yielded some of the oldest traces of humanity, making it an important area in the process of human evolution.Within Ethiopia is a massive highland complex of mountains and dissected plateaus divided by the Great Rift Valley, which runs generally southwest to northeast and is surrounded by lowlands, steppes, or semi-desert. The great diversity of terrain determines wide variations in climate, soils, natural vegetation, and settlement patterns.

Climate

Ethiopia enjoys an extremely varied climatic conditions from cool to very cold in the highlands where most of the population inhabits, to one of the hottest places on earth at the Dallol Depression. Most of Ethiopia was supposed to enjoy a tropical climate for its proximity to the equator, but due to the fact that most of the country’s land mass stands over 1,500 m (4,920 ft), that is not the case. The climate is broadly divided into three zones.

Elevation and geographic location produce three climatic zones: the cool zone above 2,400 meters (7,900 ft) where temperatures range from near freezing to 16 °C (32 °–61 °F); the temperate zone at elevations of 1,500 to 2,400 meters (4,900–7,900 ft) with temperatures from 16 to 30 °C (61–86 °F); and the hot zone below 1,500 meters (4,900 ft) with both tropical and arid conditions and daytime temperatures ranging from 27 to 50 °C (81–122 °F). The topography of Ethiopia ranges from several very high mountain ranges (the Semien Mountains and the Bale Mountains), to one of the lowest areas of land in Africa, the Danakil depression. The normal rainy season is from mid-June to mid-September (longer in the southern highlands) preceded by intermittent showers from February or March; the remainder of the year is generally dry.

Population

The population of Ethiopia (2007 estimate) is 76,511,887, yielding an overall density of 68 persons per sq km (177 per sq mi). The Amhara, who founded the original nation, and the related Tigreans, both of which are highland peoples of partly Semitic origin, constitute about 32 percent of the total population. They occupy the northwestern Ethiopian highlands and the area north of Addis Ababa. The Oromo, a pastoral and agricultural people who live mainly in central and southwestern Ethiopia, constitute about 40 percent of the population. The Shankella, a people in the western part of the country from the border of Eritrea to Lake Turkana, constitute about 6 percent of the population. The Somali, who live in the east and southeast, notably in the Ogadēn region, are about equal in number to the Shangalla. The Denakil inhabit the semidesert plains east of the highlands. The nonindigenous population includes Yemenis, Indians, Armenians, and Greeks.