Ethiopia

Ethiopia: capital Addis Ababa, population 135.5M, area 1,104,300 km². The 10th most populous country, in Africa. Facts, map, neighbours and more.

Ethiopia rises through the Horn of Africa from lowland depressions to a broad highland plateau. Fossils, Aksumite inscriptions and the churches of Lalibela trace human stories across immense spans of time. Coffee ceremony, the thirteen-month calendar and distance running remain among the country's most recognisable cultural threads.

• The 3.18-million-year-old Australopithecus skeleton called Lucy was found at Hadar in 1974; about 40 percent of her bones were recovered.
• Fourth-century King Ezana left royal proclamations at Aksum in inscriptions using three scripts and languages: Greek, Sabaean and Ge'ez.
• Ethiopian forces won the Battle of Adwa on 1 March 1896 against an Italian army; the resulting treaty recognized Ethiopia as an independent state.
• Representatives of 32 independent African states founded the Organization of African Unity in Addis Ababa on 25 May 1963.

• Abebe Bikila ran barefoot through Rome in 1960, winning the Olympic marathon in 2:15:16.2 and Ethiopia's first Olympic gold medal.
• Haile Gebrselassie set 27 world records from 2,000 metres to the marathon and won consecutive Olympic 10,000-metre titles in 1996 and 2000.
• Mulatu Astatke studied at Berklee in the 1950s and fused Ethiopian musical modes with jazz and Latin rhythms into the style called Ethio-jazz.
• Aklilu Lemma discovered in 1964 that suds from the endod soapberry killed freshwater snails transmitting schistosomiasis, a finding later developed with Ethiopian communities.

• Lalibela's 11 medieval churches were carved downward from solid volcanic rock and linked by trenches and passages during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
• Aksum's tallest standing stela rises over 23 metres and is carved to resemble a nine-storey building; a fallen counterpart originally reached 33 metres.
• The Simien Mountains' northern escarpment runs for about 35 kilometres, with cliffs reaching 1,500 metres and habitat for the endemic Walia ibex.
• Harar Jugol's sixteenth-century wall encloses 82 mosques and 102 shrines, with five historic gates connecting its lanes to surrounding roads.

• An Ethiopian coffee ceremony traditionally serves three successive brews from the same grounds, called abol, tona and baraka, often alongside popcorn or roasted grain.
• The Ethiopian calendar has 12 months of 30 days plus Pagumen, a thirteenth month lasting five days, or six in a leap year.
• The Ge'ez writing system uses 26 basic consonantal signs, each taking seven ordered forms to represent different following vowels.
• During Timkat, replicas of the tabot are carried to water on 18 January before the main Ethiopian Epiphany observance on 19 January.

What is the capital of Ethiopia?

The capital of Ethiopia is Addis Ababa.

What is the population of Ethiopia?

Ethiopia has about 135.5M people — the 10th most populous country in the world.

How big is Ethiopia?

Ethiopia covers 1,104,300 km², making it the 26th largest country by area.

Which region is Ethiopia in?

Ethiopia is in Eastern Africa, Africa.