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Italian East Africa

(Encyclopedia)Italian East Africa, former federation of the Italian colonies of Eritrea and Italian Somaliland and the kingdom of Ethiopia. The federation was formed (1936) to consolidate the administration of the ...

Aksum

(Encyclopedia)Aksum or Axum both: äkso͞omˈ [key], town , Tigray region, N Ethiopia. Aksum was the capital of an empire (c.1st–8th cent. a.d.) that controlled much of what is now N ...

Falashas

(Encyclopedia)Falashas fäläˈshəs [key] [Amharic,=exiles], Jews of Ethiopia who refer to themselves as Beta Israel (House of Israel). Long isolated from mainstream Judaism, they practice a form of the religion b...

Gondar

(Encyclopedia)Gondar or Gonder both: gŏnˈdər [key], town, capital of Amhara region, NW Ethiopia, at an altitude of ...

Adwa

(Encyclopedia)Adwa both: äˈdəwä [key], Ital. Adua, town, Tigray region, N Ethiopia. Lying on the highway between Aksum and Adigrat, Adwa is an agricultural trade center. Adwa was th...

Ethiopian Highlands

(Encyclopedia)Ethiopian Highlands, rugged plateau region of E Africa, covering about two thirds of Ethiopia. It is divided into two massifs by the Great Rift Valley; the Amhara, or Ethiopian Plateau, is the larger ...

Horn of Africa

(Encyclopedia)Horn of Africa, peninsula, NE Africa, opposite the S Arabia Peninsula. Also known as the Somali Peninsula, it encompasses Somalia and E Ethiopia and is the easternmost extension of the continent, sepa...

Eritrea

(Encyclopedia)Eritrea ĕrĭtrēˈə [key], officially State of Eritrea, republic (2021 est. pop. 3,616,635), ...

Ogaden

(Encyclopedia)Ogaden ōgäˈdān [key], region, SE Ethiopia, bordering on Somalia. It is an arid region, inhabited mainly by Somali pastoral nomads. The region was conquered by Menelik II of Ethiopia in 1891. A cla...

Oromo

(Encyclopedia)Oromo gălˈə [key], traditionally pastoral tribes who live in W and S Ethiopia and N Kenya. They number more than 25 million. About half are Muslim, about a third Ethiopian Orthodox, and about a six...