Ethiopia (ˌiːθiˈoʊpiə;
ኢትዮጵያ,
'), officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the
Horn of Africa. It is bordered by
Eritrea to the north,
Djibouti and
Somalia to the east,
Sudan and
South Sudan to the west, and
Kenya to the south. With over 86,000,000 inhabitants, Ethiopia is the most populous
landlocked country in the world and the second-most populated nation on the African continent. It occupies a total area of 1,100,000 km
2, and its capital and largest city is
Addis Ababa.
Ethiopia is one of the oldest locations of human life known to scientists and is widely considered the region from which
Homo sapiens first set out for the
Middle East and points beyond. Tracing its roots to the 2nd millennium BC, Ethiopia was a
monarchy for most of its
history. Alongside Rome, Persia, China and India, the
Kingdom of Aksum was one of the great world powers of the 3rd century. In the 4th century, it was the first major empire in the world to officially adopt Christianity as a state religion.
During the late 19th-century
Scramble for Africa, Ethiopia was the only African country beside
Liberia that retained its
sovereignty as a recognized independent country. It was one of only four African members of the 20th-century
League of Nations established following World War I. When other African nations gained their independence following
World War II, many of them adopted the colors of Ethiopia's flag. Addis Ababa became the base for several global non-profit organizations focused on Africa. In 1974, at the end of
Haile Selassie I's reign, Ethiopia became a
federal republic ruled by a military junta known as the
Derg, based on communism. In 1987
Mengistu established the Ethiopian People's Democratic Republic which survived until being defeated by a coalition, loosely called the
EPRDF. It had ruled since 1991.
Ethiopia is a
multilingual and
multiethnic society of around 80 groups, with the two largest being the
Oromo and the
Amhara, both of which speak
Afro-Asiatic languages. Ethiopia's ancient
Ge'ez script, also known as
Ethiopic, is one of the oldest alphabets still in use on the continent. The
Ethiopian calendar, which is seven years and about three months behind the
Gregorian calendar, co-exists alongside the Oromo calendar. The majority of the population is Christian and a third is Muslim; the country is the site of the first
Hijra in Islamic history and the oldest Muslim settlement in Africa at
Negash. A substantial population of
Ethiopian Jews, known as
Beta Israel, resided in Ethiopia until the 1980s but have since gradually emigrated to Israel. Ethiopia is also the spiritual homeland of the
Rastafari movement. Nine
UNESCO World Heritage Sites have been designated in the country.
Ethiopia is one of the founding members of the
UN, the
Non-Aligned Movement,
G-77 and the
Organisation of African Unity, with Addis Ababa serving as the headquarters of the
African Union, the Pan African Chamber of Commerce and Industry,
UNECA and the
African Standby Force. Despite being located at the headwaters of the
Nile, Ethiopia underwent a series of famines in the 1980s, exacerbated by civil wars and adverse geopolitics. The country has begun to recover, and it now has the largest economy by GDP in East Africa and Central Africa.
The
Greek name
Αἰθιοπία (from
Αἰθίοψ,
Aithiops, 'an Ethiopian') appears twice in the
Iliad and three times in the
Odyssey. The
Greek historian
Herodotus specifically uses it for all the lands south of Egypt, including Sudan and modern Ethiopia.
Pliny the Elder says the country's name comes from a son of
Hephaestus (aka Vulcan) named
Aethiops. Similarly, in the 15th century
Ge'ez Book of Aksum, the name is ascribed to a legendary individual called
Ityopp'is, an extrabiblical son of
Cush, son of Ham, said to have founded the city of
Axum. In addition to this Cushite figure, two of the earliest Semitic kings are also said to have borne the name
Ityopp'is according to traditional Ethiopian king lists. Modern European scholars beginning c. 1600 have considered the name to be derived from the Greek words
aitho "I burn" +
ops "face".
The name
Ethiopia also occurs in many translations of the Old Testament, but the Hebrew texts have
Kush, which refers principally to Nubia. In the New Testament, however, the Greek term Aithiops, 'an Ethiopian', does occur, referring to a servant of Candace or
Kentakes, possibly an inhabitant of
Meroe which was later conquered and destroyed by the
Kingdom of Axum. The earliest attested use of the name
Ityopya in the region itself is as a name for the
Kingdom of Aksum in the 4th century, in stone inscriptions of
King Ezana, who first Christianized the entire apparatus of the kingdom.
In English, and generally outside Ethiopia, the country was also once
historically known as Abyssinia, derived from
Habesh, an early
Arabic form of the
Ethiosemitic name "Ḥabaśāt" (unvocalized "ḤBŚT"). The modern form
Habesha is the native name for the country's inhabitants (while the country has been called "Ityopp'ya"). In a few languages, Ethiopia is still referred to by names cognate with "Abyssinia", e.g., modern Arabic
Al-Ḥabashah.