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Eritrea officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in Northeast Africa. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast. The east and northeast of the country have an extensive coastline on the Red Sea, directly across from Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The Dahlak Archipelago and several of the Hanish Islands are part of Eritrea.
It extends about 600 mi (1,000 km) along the Red Sea coast and includes the Dahlak Archipelago. Area: 46,770 sq mi (121,144 sq km). Population (2005 est.): 4,670,000 (including about 350,000 refugees from The Sudan). Capital:
Asmara. There is no official religion or language. The varied population is about half
Tigrinya-speaking (see Tigray) Christians, with a large minority of Muslims and diverse other peoples. Arabic, English, and Italian are also spoken. Currency:
nakfa. The land varies from temperate central highlands to coastal desert plain, with savanna and open woodlands in the western lowlands. The economy is based on livestock herding and subsistence agriculture. Industry, based in
Asmara, includes food products, textiles, and leather goods; exports include salt, hides, cement, and gum
arabic. Eritrea’s form of government is a transitional regime with one interim legislative body; the head of state and government is the president. As the site of the main ports of the Aksumite empire, it was linked to the beginnings of the Ethiopian kingdom, but it retained much of its independence until it came under Ottoman rule in the 16th century. In the 17th–19th centuries, control of the territory was disputed among Ethiopia, the Ottomans, the kingdom of
Tigray, Egypt, and Italy; it became an Italian colony in 1890. Eritrea was used as the main base for the Italian invasions of Ethiopia (1896, 1935–36) and in 1936 became part of Italian East Africa. It was captured by the British in 1941, federated to Ethiopia in 1952, and made a province of Ethiopia in 1962. Three decades of guerrilla warfare by Eritrean secessionist groups ensued. A provisional Eritrean government was established in 1991 after the overthrow of the Ethiopian government, and independence came in 1993. A new constitution was ratified in 1997. A border war with Ethiopia that began in 1998 ended in an Ethiopian victory in 2000.
Italy conquered Eritrea and the Italian government formally consolidated it into a colony on January 1, 1890. In 1936 it became a province of Italian East Africa (Africa Orientale
Italiana), along with Ethiopia and Italian Somaliland. The British armed forces expelled the Italian armed forces in
1941 and took over the administration of the country which had been set up by the Italians. The British continued to administer the territory under a UN Mandate until 1951 when Eritrea was federated with Ethiopia as per UN resolution 390(A) adopted in December 1950; the resolution was adopted in the absence of any form of consultation with the people of Eritrea.
Increasing unrest and resistance in Eritrea against the federation with Ethiopia eventually led to a decision by the Ethiopian government to annex Eritrea as its 14th province in 1962. This was the culimination of a gradual process of takeover by the Ethiopian authorities, a process which included an edict in 1959 establishing the compulsory teaching of
Amharic, the main language of Ethiopia, in all Eritrean schools. An Eritrean independence movement formed in the early 1960s which erupted into a 31-year long war against successive Ethiopian governments that ended in 1991. Following a UN-supervised referendum in Eritrea dubbed UNOVER in which the Eritrean people overwhelmingly voted for independence from Ethiopia, Eritrea declared its independence and gained international recognition in
1993.
English is used in the government's international communication and is the language of instruction in all formal education beyond the fifth
grade.
Eritrea is a single-party state - while its constitution, adopted in 1997, stipulates that the state is a presidential republic with a unicameral parliamentary democracy, it has yet to be implemented. According to the
government, this is due to the prevailing border conflict with Ethiopia which began in May 1998.
One of the oldest hominids, representing a possible link between Homo erectus and an archaic Homo sapiens, was found in Buya
(Eritrean Danakil) in 1995 by Italian scientists. The cranium was dated to over 1 million years
old. Furthermore, in 1999, the Eritrean Research Project Team, discovered some of the earliest remains of humans using tools to harvest marine resources. The site contained obsidian tools dated to the paleolithic era, over 125,000 years
old. Epipaleolithic or mesolithic cave paintings in central and northern Eritrea attest to early hunter-gatherers in this region. A US paleontologist, William Sanders of the University of Michigan, also discovered a possible missing link between ancient and modern elephants in the form of the fossilized remains of a pig-sized creature in Eritrea. The fossil which is 27 million years old pushes the origins of elephants and mastodons five million years further into the past and asserts that modern elephants originated in Africa.
The oldest written reference to the territory now known as Eritrea is the chronicled expedition launched to the fabled Punt (or Ta
Netjeru, meaning land of the Gods) by the Ancient Egyptians in the twenty-fifth century BC under Pharaoh
Sahure. Later sources from the Pharaoh Hatshepsut in the fifteenth century BC present a more detailed portrayal of an expedition in search of frankincense. The geographical location of the missions to Punt is described as roughly corresponding to the southern west coast of the Red Sea. The name Eritrea is a rendition of the ancient Greek name Ερυθραία, Erythraía, meaning the "Red Land". The earliest evidence of agriculture, urban settlement and trade in Eritrea was found in the western region of the country consisting of archeological remains dating back to 3500 BC in sites called the Gash group. Based on the archaeological evidence, there seems to have been a connection between the peoples of the Gash group and the civilizations of the Nile Valley namely Ancient Egypt and
Nubia.
In the highlands, especially in Asmara's suburbs, scores of ancient sites have been documented, including
Sembel, Mai Chiot, Ona Gudo, Mai Temenai, Weki Duba and Mai Hutsa. Mostly dating to the early and mid-1st millennium BCE (800 to 350 BCE), these communities consisted of small towns, villages, and hamlets built of stone. The proximity of these ancient communities to gold mines suggest that part of their prosperity was linked to the mining and processing of gold. Around the mid-1st millennium, several sites with Sabaean remains (inscriptions, artifacts, monuments, etc.) seem to emerge in the central highlands, for example, at
Keskese. Between the eighth and fifth century BCE, a kingdom known as D'mt was supposedly established in what is today Eritrea and the Tigray province of northern Ethiopia.
After D'mt's decline around the fifth century BC, the state of Aksum arose in much of Eritrea and the northern Ethiopian Highlands. It grew during the fourth century BC and came into prominence during the first century AD, minting its own coins by the third century, and converting in the fourth century to Christianity, thereby becoming the second official Christian state (after Armenia), and the first country to feature the cross on its coins. According to
Mani, it grew to be one of the four greatest civilizations in the world, on a par with China, Persia, and Rome. In the seventh century, with the advent of Islam across the Red Sea in Arabia and the Arab invasion and subsequent destruction of
Adulis, Aksum's trade and power on the Red Sea began to decline and the empire gradually diminished and was overtaken by smaller rival kingdoms.
During the medieval period, contemporary with and following the gradual disintegration of the Aksumite state between the 9th and 10th centuries, several states as well as tribal and clan lands emerged in the area known today as Eritrea. Between the eighth and thirteenth century, northern and northwestern Eritrea had largely come under the domination of the
Beja, a Cushitic people from northeastern Sudan. The Beja brought Islam to large parts of Eritrea and connected the region to the greater Islamic world.
Nontheless, Christians of the Axumite era continued to inhabit these areas and retain their religion.
In the main highland area and adjacent coastline of what were previously Muslim
(Beja) ruled areas, a Christian Kingdom called Midir Bahr or Midri Bahri
(Tigrinya for land of the sea) arose, ruled by the Bahr Negus or Bahr
Negash, ("ruler of the sea") emerged in the 15th century. The southeastern parts of Eritrea, inhabited by the independent Afar since ancient times, came to form part of the Islamic Adal Sultanate in the early 13th century. Parts of the southwestern lowlands of Eritrea were under the dominion of the then Christian/Animist Funj Sultanate of
Sinnar.
An invading force of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, under Suleiman I, conquered Massawa in 1557 from the Christians, building what is now considered the "old town" of Massawa on Batsi island. They also conquered the towns of Hergigo and
Debarwa, the capital city of Yeshaq, the contemporary Christian Bahr
Negus, before being repulsed back to the coast by 1578. The Ottomans remained in control of the important ports of Massawa and Hergigo and their environs, and maintained their dominion over the coastal areas for nearly 300 years, absorbing the coastal areas of the disintegrated Adal Sultanate as vassals in the 16th century. The Funj Sultanate of Sinnar converted to Islam in the 16th century but maintained independent control of the southwestern areas of Eritrea until being absorbed into the Ottoman Empire in the early 19th century.
With the feudal rule of the Bahr Negus in the predominantly Christian highland interior severely weakened from the 17th century up until modern times, the area was dubbed Mereb Mellash by locals and neighboring Ethiopians alike, meaning "beyond the
Mereb" (in Tigrinya). This name defined the territory as being north of the Mareb River which to this day is a natural boundary between the modern states of Eritrea and
Ethiopia. Roughly the same area also came to be referred to as
Hamasien, a name that survived until modern times, designating a much smaller area (province) immediately surrounding the capital
Asmara, until being absorbed into the new administrative divisions in 1994. In these areas, feudal authority was particularly weak or nonexistent, and the autonomy of the landowning peasantry was particularly strong; a kind of republican rule was prevalent, governed by local customary laws legislated by elected elder's councils
(shimagile). In 1770, the Scottish researcher James Bruce describes Hamasien and Abyssinia as "different countries who are often fighting
Italian colonisation began arguably with the purchase of the locality of Assab by a Roman Catholic priest by the name of Giuseppe Sapetto acting on behalf of a Genovese shipping company called
"Rubattino" who bought the land from the Afar Sultan of Obock (a vassal of the Ottomans) in 1869. This happened in the same year as the opening of the Suez
Canal. With the approval of the Italian parliament and King Umberto I of Italy (later succeeded by his son Victor Emmanuel III), the government of Italy bought the Rubattino company's holdings and expanded its possessions northward along the Red Sea coast toward and beyond
Massawa, encroaching on and quickly expelling previous 'Egyptian' possessions but meeting stiffer resistance in the Eritrean highlands from the invading army of the Emperor Yohannes IV of Ethiopia
Eritrea’s coastal location has long been important in its history and culture—a fact reflected in its name, which is an Italianized version of Mare
Erythraeum, Latin for “Red Sea.” The Red Sea was the route along which Christianity and Islām reached the area and took firm hold among the people, and it was an important trade route that such powers as Turkey, Egypt, and Italy hoped to dominate by seizing control of ports on the Eritrean coast. Those ports promised access to the gold, coffee, and slaves sold by traders in the Ethiopian highlands to the south, and in the second half of the 20th century Ethiopia became the power from which the Eritrean people had to free themselves in order to create their own state. In 1993, after a war of independence that lasted nearly three decades, Eritrea became a sovereign country. During the long struggle, the people of Eritrea managed to forge a common national consciousness, but, with peace established, they now face the task of overcoming their ethnic and religious differences in order to raise the country from a poverty made worse by years of drought, neglect, and war.
Eritrea’s land is highly variegated. Running on a north-south axis through the middle of the country are the central highlands, a narrow strip of country some 6,500 feet (2,000
metres) above sea level that represents the northern reaches of the Ethiopian Plateau. Geologically, this plateau consists of a foundation of crystalline rock (e.g., granite, gneiss,
micaschist) that is overlain by sedimentary rock (limestone and sandstone) and then capped by basalt (rock of volcanic origin). The upper layers have been highly dissected by deep gorges and river channels, forming small steep-sided, flat-topped tablelands known as
ambas. The highest point in the plateau is Mount Soira, at 9,885 feet (3,013
metres).
In the north of Eritrea the highlands narrow and then end in a system of hills, where erosion has cut down to the basement rock. To the east the plateau drops abruptly into a coastal plain. North of the Gulf of
Zula, the plain is only 10 to 50 miles wide, but to the south it widens to include the Denakil Plain. This barren region contains a depression known as the Kobar Sink (more than 300 feet below sea level), the northern end of which extends into Eritrea. The coastal plain and the Denakil Plain are part of the East African Rift System and are sharply delimited on the west by the eastern escarpment of the plateau, which, although deeply eroded, presents a formidable obstacle to travelers from the coast.
The western flank of the central highlands is a broken and undulating plain that slopes gradually toward the border with The Sudan. It lies at an average elevation of 1,500 feet. The vegetation is mostly savanna, consisting of scattered trees, shrubs, and seasonal grasses.
Off the coast in the Red Sea is the Dahlak Archipelago, a group of more than 100 small coral and reef-fringed islands. Only a few of these islands have a permanent population.
The Eritrean highlands are drained by four major rivers and numerous streams. Two of the rivers, the Gash and the
Tekeze, flow westward into The Sudan. The Tekeze River (also known as the
Satit) is a major tributary of the Atbara River, which eventually joins the Nile. The Gash River reaches the Atbara only during flood season. As it crosses the western lowlands, the Tekeze forms part of Eritrea’s border with Ethiopia, while the upper course of the Gash, known as the Mereb River, forms the border on the plateau.
The other two major rivers that drain the highlands of Eritrea are the Barka and the
Anseba. Both of these rivers flow northward into a marshy area on the eastern coast of The Sudan and do not reach the Red Sea. Several seasonal streams that flow eastward from the plateau reach the sea on the Eritrean coast.
Eritrea has a wide variety of climatic conditions, produced mainly by differences in altitude. The effects of elevation are seen most clearly in the wide range of temperatures experienced throughout the country. On the coast, Massawa
(Mitsiwa) has one of the highest averages in the world (86° F, or 30° C), while
Asmara, only 40 miles away yet more than 7,500 feet higher on the plateau, averages 62° F (17° C).
Mean annual rainfall on the plateau is 16 to 20 inches (400 to 500
millimetres), while on the western plain it is less than 16 inches. In both the highlands and the western lowlands, rainfall comes in summer, carried on a southwesterly airstream that decreases in amount of precipitation and length of rainy season as it proceeds toward the northeastern extremes of the plateau. The eastern edges of the plateau and, to a lesser extent, the coastal fringes receive much smaller quantities of rain from a northeasterly airstream that arrives in winter and spring. The interior regions of the Denakil Plain are practically rainless.
The environment is a determining factor in the distribution of Eritrea’s population. Although the plateau represents only one-quarter of the total land area, it is home to approximately one-half of the population, most of them sedentary agriculturalists. The lowlands on the east and west support a population mainly of
pastoralists, although most of them also cultivate crops when and where weather conditions permit. As a rule, pastoralists follow various patterns of movement set by the seasons. Only the
Rashaida, a small group in the northern hills, is truly nomadic.
Under Italian colonial rule from 1889 to 1941, Eritrea’s urban sector flourished with the establishment of Asmara as the capital city, Assab
(Aseb) as a new port on the Red Sea, and a host of smaller towns on the plateau. In addition,
Massawa, an old and cosmopolitan port with strong links to Arabia, was expanded considerably. By the end of the colonial period, Eritrea had by far the highest urbanization rate in the Horn of Africa—approximately 15 percent—although a large part of the urban population was Italian nationals who eventually left the country. Subsequently, a population drift from the countryside to the towns was offset by emigration of Eritreans abroad, so that at the time of independence in 1993 the relative size of the urban sector remained unchanged.
Eritrea’s population consists of several ethnic groups, each with its own language and cultural tradition. The Eritrean highlands are an extension of the Ethiopian Plateau to the south, and the bulk of the peasantry on the plateau belong to the
Tigray, a group that also occupies the adjacent Ethiopian province of
Tigray. The Tigrayan language, called Tigrinya, is spoken on both sides of the border and is the speech of nearly one-half of all
Eritreans.
Inhabiting the northernmost part of the Eritrean plateau, as well as lowlands to the east and west, are people who speak the other major Eritrean
language—Tigre. Tigre and Tigrinya are written in the same script and are descended from the same mother tongue (the ancient Semitic language of
Geʿez), but they are mutually unintelligible.
Also occupying the northern plateau are Bilin speakers, whose language belongs to the Cushitic family. The Rashaida are a group of Arabic-speaking nomads who traverse the northern hills.
On the southern part of the coastal region live Afar nomads, whose relatives live across the borders in Djibouti and Ethiopia; they are also called the
Denakil, after the region that they inhabit. The coastal strip south of
Massawa, as well as the eastern flanks of the plateau, are occupied by Saho
pastoralists. In the western plain, the dominant people are pastoralists of the Beja family, whose kin live across the border in The Sudan. Two small Nilotic groups, the Kunama and the Nara, also live in the west.
Salt mining, based on deposits in the Kobar Sink, is a traditional activity in Eritrea. Deposits of gold, copper, potash, and iron have been exploited at times in a minor way, and numerous other minerals have been identified, including zinc, feldspar, gypsum, asbestos, mica, and sulfur.
The area of cultivation is limited by climate and the uneven surface of the plateau, so that, of the 8 million acres (3.2 million hectares) of land considered cultivable, only 5 percent is being worked. There is room for expansion, however, especially if the country’s considerable water resources are harnessed for irrigation.
In normal times, livestock is a valuable resource, and it has the potential to play a role in Eritrea’s foreign trade. During the long war of independence, however, livestock was severely depleted. The fishing potential of the Red Sea is another underutilized resource.
Soil erosion, an age-old process, is particularly severe on the plateau. Encouraged by the steady expansion of cultivation, it has left few wooded areas and has created a shortage of fuel. The proximity of the oil-rich Arabian basin has occasionally raised expectations of discovering petroleum in Eritrea, but intermittent exploration since the days of Italian rule has failed to produce results.
Agriculture is by far the most important sector of the country’s economy, providing a livelihood for about 80 percent of the population and normally accounting for the bulk of Eritrea’s exports. Peasant cultivation and traditional pastoralism are the main forms of agricultural activity. These are not mutually exclusive occupations, since most peasants also keep animals and most pastoralists cultivate grains when possible. Both peasants and pastoralists produce primarily for their own subsistence, and only small surpluses are available for trade.
The staple grain products are an indigenous cereal named teff (Eragostis
abyssinica) as well as corn (maize), wheat, barley, sorghum, and millet. Vegetables and fruit also are produced. Under Italian rule, modern irrigated plantations produced vegetables, fruit, cotton, sisal, bananas, tobacco, and coffee for the growing urban markets. This sector continued to operate under Ethiopian rule until it was disrupted by the long period of warfare.
A generation of war also damaged Eritrea’s modest manufacturing sector, which also appeared during the Italian colonial period and provided many Eritrean workers with skills that enabled them later to find work abroad. Industry was based largely on the processing of agricultural products. Asmara was the main industrial
centre, concerned with food products, beer, tobacco, textiles, and leather.
A petroleum refinery in the Red Sea port of Assab, built by the former Soviet Union for Ethiopia, is the prime industrial enterprise in Eritrea. Assab also has a salt works, and there are a salt works and a cement works near the port of
Massawa.
Eritrean National elections were set for 1995 and then postponed until 2001; it was then decided that because 20% of Eritrea's land was under occupation, elections would be postponed until the resolution of the conflict with Ethiopia. However, local elections have continued in Eritrea. The most recent round of local government elections were held in May 2004. On further elections, the President's Chief of Staff, Yemane Ghebremeskel
said,
“ The electoral commission is handling these elections this time round so that may be the new element in this process. The national assembly has also mandated the electoral commission to set the date for national elections, so whenever the electoral commission sets the date there will be national elections. It's not dependent on regional elections.
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