Ethiopia

📖 In short

Ethiopia is a country in the Horn of Africa, in East Africa. It has no coastline, but it's a beautiful mountainous country with high plateaus, lakes and rivers. It's one of the oldest countries in the world, and its capital is Addis Ababa.

🤩 Did you know?

The capital is Addis Ababa, whose name means “new flower”.
Amharic is the official language, and it has its own alphabet.
Ethiopia's currency is the birr.
Ethiopia has its own calendar, seven or eight years behind the Gregorian calendar.

🗂️ Fact file

Capital: Addis Ababa
Official language: Amharic
Official name: Ityopya Hizbawi, in Amharic, meaning Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
Currency: Ethiopia's official currency is the birr.
Area: 1,221,900 km²
Population: According to the 1996 estimate, the population was 55,279,000.

🔎 Find out more

🌟 The roof of Africa

Most of Ethiopia is a high plateau with tall mountains and deep valleys, so some people call it “the roof of Africa”. The Blue Nile rises in its mountains and flows to Sudan and Egypt.

🔍 Home of coffee

It's said the coffee plant was first discovered in Ethiopia, and coffee spread from there to Yemen and then the world. Ethiopians have a special coffee ceremony in which the beans are roasted and ground in front of guests.

💡 A long history

Ethiopia has a very long history, with ancient churches carved into rock at Lalibela. In the early days of Islam some of the Prophet's companions emigrated there, and its king, the Negus, treated them with honor.