THE LAND OF ETHIOPIA...

- A COUNTRY OF DIVERSITY:

It was home to the most ancient kingdom in Africa, one of the first monarchies in the world. It's the sole African country to possess an alphabet more than 2,000 years old. It's the only country on the continent to have maintained independence in the face of European colonizers.

The name is derived from the Greek Aithiopia, which means "Land of the burnt faces." It's also known in Europe  as Abyssinia, a term coming from the Arabic Habashat, which referred to one of the tribes South of Arabia that emigrated to Ethiopia at the beginning of it's history..!!!

The calender is another unique feature - it has 13 months. Using the Julian calender, Ethiopia has twelve lunar months of thirty days, plus one month of five or six, depending on the leap year. The Julian calendar began 7 years and 113 days after the Christian age, making the first day of the New Year September 11.

- THE CRADLE OF HUMANITY

The origin of Ethiopia is largely the origin of us all. Ethiopia is home to many of the most ancient  hominid
remains yet discovered. Charles Darwin hypothesised that humanity originated in Africa. Ethiopia's first modern encounter with the ancient world was in 1974. It's made headline news everywhere. Anthropologists around  the world took note: "Lucy" had been discovered.

At the head of the Rift Valley, in Hadar, where the African and Arabian tectonic plates coverage, a team from the Institute of Human Origins of Berkeley, California, found the oldest hominid remains discovered up to that time. The majority of Scientists believe that Australopithecus evolved towards the genus Homo, a step occurring between 2.7 and 3.2 million years ago.

- PEOPLE - A HUMAN GEOGRAPHY = POPULATION AND DENSITY

With an estimated population of 70,000,000 - 80,000,000 inhabitants ( in 2004), Ethiopia is one of the most  populated countries on the continent, rendering it a significant demographic power in Africa. The majority of Ethiopian population is rural, largely due to the fact that the main source of the country is agriculture.

Academically, more than 86 different languages have been recognized in Ethiopia, of which 82 are living languages. This does not include the infinite number of dialects, many of which remain unclassified. The official language of the country is Amharic, though the most widely spoken is Oromo, which belongs to the largest ethno-linguistic group.