Portal:Ethiopia
Introduction
Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia የኢትዮጵያ ፌደራላዊ ዴሞክራሲያዊ ሪፐብሊክ (Amharic) | |
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Anthem: ወደፊት ገስግሺ ፣ ውድ እናት ኢትዮጵያ (English: "March Forward, Dear Mother Ethiopia") | |
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ISO 3166 code | ET |
Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the East, Kenya to the South, South Sudan to the West, and Sudan to the Northwest. Ethiopia covers a land area of 1,112,000 square kilometres (472,000 sq. miles). As of 2024[update], it is home to around 109 million inhabitants, making it the 13th-most populous country in the world, the 2nd-most populous in Africa after Nigeria, and the most populated landlocked country on Earth. The national capital and largest city, Addis Ababa, lies several kilometres west of the East African Rift that splits the country into the African and Somali tectonic plates.
Anatomically modern humans emerged from modern-day Ethiopia and set out for the Near East and elsewhere in the Middle Paleolithic period. Southwestern Ethiopia has been proposed as a possible homeland of the Afroasiatic language family. In 980 BC, the Kingdom of D'mt extended its realm over Eritrea and the northern region of Ethiopia, while the Kingdom of Aksum maintained a unified civilization in the region for 900 years. Christianity was embraced by the kingdom in 330, and Islam arrived by the first Hijra in 615. After the collapse of Aksum in 960, the Zagwe dynasty ruled the north-central parts of Ethiopia until being overthrown by Yekuno Amlak in 1270, inaugurating the Ethiopian Empire and the Solomonic dynasty, claimed descent from the biblical Solomon and Queen of Sheba under their son Menelik I. By the 14th century, the empire had grown in prestige through territorial expansion and fighting against adjacent territories; most notably, the Ethiopian–Adal War (1529–1543) contributed to fragmentation of the empire, which ultimately fell under a decentralization known as Zemene Mesafint in the mid-18th century. Emperor Tewodros II ended Zemene Mesafint at the beginning of his reign in 1855, marking the reunification and modernization of Ethiopia. (Full article...)
Selected article -
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/59/Geez_script_sample.svg/220px-Geez_script_sample.svg.png)
Geʽez (Ge'ez: ግዕዝ, romanized: Gəʽəz, IPA: [ˈɡɨʕɨz] ) is a script used as an abugida (alphasyllabary) for several Afro-Asiatic and Nilo-Saharan languages of Ethiopia and Eritrea. It originated as an abjad (consonantal alphabet) and was first used to write the Geʽez language, now the liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Eritrean Catholic Church, the Ethiopian Catholic Church, and Haymanot Judaism of the Beta Israel Jewish community in Ethiopia. In the languages Amharic and Tigrinya, the script is often called fidäl (ፊደል), meaning "script" or "letter". Under the Unicode Standard and ISO 15924, it is defined as Ethiopic text.
The Geʽez script has been adapted to write other languages, mostly Ethiosemitic, particularly Amharic in Ethiopia, and Tigrinya in both Eritrea and Ethiopia. It has also been used to write Sebat Bet and other Gurage languages and at least 20 other languages of Ethiopia. In Eritrea it has traditionally been used for Tigre and just recently for Bilen. The Geʽez script has also recently been used to write Anuak, and used in limited extent to write some other Nilo-Saharan Nilotic languages, including Majang languages. It was also used in the past to write some Omotic languages, including Wolaytta, Bench, Hamer, and Kafa.
Selected biography -
Tewodros II (Ge'ez: ዳግማዊ ቴዎድሮስ, once referred to by the English cognate Theodore; baptized as Kassa, c. 1818 – 13 April 1868) was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1855 until his death in 1868. His rule is often placed as the beginning of modern Ethiopia and brought an end to the decentralized Zemene Mesafint (Era of the Princes).
Although Tewodros II's origins were in the Era of the Princes, his ambitions were not those of the regional nobility. He sought to re-establish a cohesive Ethiopian state and to reform its administration and church. (Full article...)General images -
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Did you know -
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/44/Nuvola_apps_filetypes.svg/47px-Nuvola_apps_filetypes.svg.png)
- ... that Liberian paramount chief Tamba Taylor worked as a tailor and claimed to have sewn clothes for Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie and Ghanaian president Kwame Nkrumah?
- ... that Quintin Johnstone advocated giving control of an American-governed law school to native Ethiopians?
- ... that medieval Ethiopian kings claimed to be descended from Solomon?
- ... that the government of Ethiopia's SNNP Region supported local governments calling for a referendum to secede from the region?
- ... that Aguil Chut-Deng took 22 child refugees from South Sudan to Ethiopia during civil war so that they could attend school?
In the news
- 25 August 2024 –
- At least thirteen people are killed and at least 14 others remain missing after a boat carrying Ethiopian and Yemeni migrants from Djibouti sinks off the coast of Taiz Governorate, Yemen. (Al Jazeera)
- 5 August 2024 – 2024 Wolayita landslide
- At least thirteen people are killed by a rainfall-triggered landslide in Wolayita, Ethiopia. (AP)
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