Portal:Ethiopia

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Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
የኢትዮጵያ ፌደራላዊ ዴሞክራሲያዊ ሪፐብሊክ (Amharic)
Anthem: 
[ወደፊት ገስግሺ ፣ ውድ እናት ኢትዮጵያ] Error: {{Lang}}: invalid parameter: |bold= (help)
(English: "March Forward, Dear Mother Ethiopia")
ISO 3166 codeET

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 1,104,300 square kilometres (426,400 sq mi). As of 2024, it is home to around 132 million inhabitants, making it the 10th-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. 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...)

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Ethiopian women in Addis Ababa

There have been several studies concerning women in Ethiopia. Historically, elite and powerful women in Ethiopia have been visible as administrators and warriors. This never translated into any benefit to improve the rights of women, but it had meant that women could inherit and own property and act as advisors on important communal and tribal matters. As late as the first part of the 20th century, Queen Menen, consort of Emperor Haile Selassie I, had a decisive role in running the Ethiopian Empire. Workit and Mestayit regents to their minor sons have been held responsible for their provinces. They owed their rights to landed property because of a special type of land tenure that expected tenants to serve as militia to overlords, irrespective of gender. In 1896, Empress Tayetu Betul, wife of Emperor Menelik II, actively advised the government and participated in defending the country from Italian invasion. Prominent and other landowning women fought against the second invasion in 1935–41. With the assistance of European advisors, women in the ensuing period were kept out of the army and politics, even as advisors. Instead, they were restricted to family and household work of raising children and cooking. With a steady increase in female representation in education, they have started to undertake nursing, teaching, and other similarly supportive roles. Over the 2018–2019 period, their gradual participation in state politics has been increasing at a steady pace. (Full article...)

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Zewditu (Ge'ez: ዘውዲቱ, born Askala Maryam; 29 April 1876 – 2 April 1930) was Empress of Ethiopia from 1916 until her death in 1930. She was officially renamed Zewditu at the beginning of her reign as Empress of Ethiopia. Once she succeeded the throne after Lij Yasu in 1916, she was described as the first modern-era female head in the nation of Africa. Her official coronation was on February 11, 1917, held in the Cathedral of St. George in Addis Ababa—a capital founded by her father. She was forty years old, and childless when she was crowned empress. The first female head of an internationally recognized country in Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the first and only empress regnant of the Ethiopian Empire, her reign was noted for the reforms of her Regent and designated heir Ras Tafari Makonnen (who succeeded her as Emperor Haile Selassie I), about which she was at best ambivalent and often stridently opposed, due to her staunch conservatism and strong religious devotion. She is the most recent empress regnant, as well as the last female Ethiopian head of state until the 2018 election of Sahle-Work Zewde as president. It is heard that she patterned her reign close to the British Queen Victoria’s legacy.

Empress Zewditu sought to maintain Ethiopia's traditional values during her reign through a series of conservative policies, resisting rapid modernization. Ascending to the throne in 1916 after the deposition of Emperor Iyasu V, she was supported by conservative factions and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, who saw her as a stabilizing figure. Her rule was characterized by efforts to uphold Ethiopian traditions and the Orthodox Christian faith, contrasting with the modernizing ambitions of her regent, Ras Tafari Makonnen, later known as Emperor Haile Selassie. (Full article...)

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In the news

29 January 2025 – War against the Islamic State
Puntland authorities deport around a thousand undocumented Ethiopians from the cities of Bosaso, Galkayo, Qardho, and the state’s capital, Garoowe, as part of an ongoing crackdown on foreigners without legal status, following the discovery of foreign fighters acting as Islamic State recruiters in the Cal Miskaad mountains of the Bari Region. (Hiiraan Online) (Idil News) (Horseed Media)
21 January 2025 –
Twenty Ethiopian migrants are killed when their boat capsizes off Yemen after departing from Djibouti, according to the International Organization for Migration. (Al Arabiya)
11 January 2025 – Ethiopia–Somalia relations
Prime Minister of Ethiopia Abiy Ahmed and President of Somalia Hassan Sheikh Mohamud meet in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, as part of a Turkey-brokered rapprochement to restore bilateral relations after a yearlong dispute due to the 2024 Ethiopia–Somaliland memorandum of understanding. (Bloomberg)
9 January 2025 – Somali Civil War, War against the Islamic State
Puntland counterterrorism forces capture four foreign Islamic State fighters from Ethiopia, Yemen, and Tanzania, while intercepting and destroying multiple explosive-carrying drones in Bari, Puntland. (Idil News) (VOA) (Garowe Online)

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