1. Country background

1.

Country background

1.1

Overview

the east, by Kenya on the south and

by Sudan to the west (see Figure 1).

The Federal Republic of Ethiopia,

Its territory, of about 1.3 million

known in the past under the biblical

square kilometers, consists of a

name of Abyssinia, is one of the most

massive highland complex of

ancient independent countries in the

mountains and plateaus, divided by

world. It has its historical origins in

the Great Rift Valley running from

the Empire of Ethiopia, which

southeast to northeast, and

according to legend was founded by

surrounded by lowlands, steppes or

Menelik I, son of King Solomon and

semi desert.

Queen Sheba. Ethiopia is the only

country in Africa which has never been

Although a landlocked country today,

colonized. For this reason it stands as

Ethiopia used to have access to the

a symbol for other African countries

sea through Eritrea, formerly one of

and has been chosen to host

its provinces. After the referendum of

important regional African institutions,

1993, however, Eritrea became

such as the Organization for African

independent, leaving Ethiopia without

Unity (OAU) and UN Economic

a coastline. Due to recent conflicts

Commission for Africa (ECA).

with Eritrea, almost all of Ethiopia's

surface import/export traffic passes by

Located on the Horn of Africa, in the

road or rail through Djibouti.

eastern part of the continent, Ethiopia

is bordered by Eritrea to the

Ethiopia has extremely varied climatic

northeast, by Djibouti and Somalia to

conditions due to its location close to

Figure 1: Ethiopia

Source: CIA World Factbook 2001, http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/.

1