Wednesday, March 27, 2019

Up with Geography: Ethiopia

Country Name:
Ethiopia

Capital:
Addis Ababa

Continent:
Africa

Maps:
African continent. Ethiopia outlined in dark ink.

A close-up of Ethiopia & its neighbors.

Neighbors:
Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya, South Sudan, Sudan

Water Borders:
None

Total Area:
426,400 square miles

Five Largest Cities:
Addis Ababa, Gondar, Mek’ele, Adama, Hawassa (based on 2016 estimates; the middle 3 cities are all very close in population size)

Famous Geographical Point:
Lake Tana (the source of the Blue Nile)

Famous Person:
Yohannes Gebregeorgis, founder of childhood literacy non-profit Ethiopia Reads

Book Set In/About:
There Is No Me Without You by Melissa Fay Greene

The true story of an Ethiopian woman who, after the deaths of her husband & daughter, opened her home to an orphan, only to soon find herself running a full orphanage during the height of the AIDS crisis.

Movie Set In/About:
“Adwa” (2009), directed by Haile Gerima

This documentary film tells the history of the 1896 Battle of Adwa, wherein Ethiopians armed only with knives and spears were able to defeat the invading Italian army bent on colonization.

Headline of the Day:
“Ethiopian Ethnic Rivalries Threaten Abiy Ahmed’s Reform Agenda” in Financial Times

2 comments:

Patricia said...

Good old Ethiopia! It looms large in my mind because of the famine in the '80s. I'm sure people from Ethiopia would not be thrilled to hear that's my only reference point, aside form the guy I worked with at Whole Foods who was from that country.

I like the name of the capital, which I was not at all familiar with.

balyien said...

I can't claim to know much about Ethiopia either, apart from the famine and coffee. And now, what little bits I gleaned from doing this post. There's a lot to know about the world, though, and it's ever changing. I think there's been a country name change or two since I started this project, and perhaps even a new country that's popped up.