Founding
country in the Horn of Africa
Fetching the article from Wikipedia…
Eritrea, officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. Its capital and largest city is Asmara. The country is bordered by Ethiopia to the south, Sudan to the west, and Djibouti to the southeast. The northeastern and eastern parts of Eritrea have an extensive coastline along the Red Sea. The country has a total area of approximately 117,600 km2 (45,406 sq mi), and includes the Dahlak Archipelago and several of the Hanish Islands.
Hominid remains found in Eritrea have been dated to 1 million years old and anthropological research indicates that the area may contain significant records related to human evolution. The Kingdom of Aksum, centred in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia, was established during the first or second century AD and was considered one of the four great powers of the world by the Persian prophet Mani, the founder of Manichaeism. It adopted Christianity around the middle of the fourth century. Beginning in the 12th century, the Zagwe and Solomonid dynasties held fluctuating control over the entire plateau and the Red Sea coast. Eritrea's central highlands, known as Mereb Melash ("Beyond the Mereb"), were the northern frontier region of the Ethiopian kingdoms and were ruled by a governor titled the Bahr Negus ("King of the Sea").
In the 16th century, the decades-long attempt of the Ottomans to conquer the Ethiopian Highlands failed, forcing them to offer a peace treaty in which they were limited to the Eritrean coastline. In May 1865, much of the coastal lowlands came under the rule of the Khedivate of Egypt, until it was transferred to Italy in February 1885. Beginning in 1885–1890, Italian troops systematically spread out from Massawa toward the highlands, eventually resulting in the formation of the colony of Italian Eritrea in 1889, establishing the present-day boundaries of the country. Italian rule continued until 1942, when Eritrea was placed under British Military Administration during World War II; following a UN General Assembly decision in 1952, Eritrea would govern itself with a local Eritrean parliament, but for foreign affairs and defense, it would enter into federal status with Ethiopia for ten years. However, in 1962, the government of Ethiopia annulled the Eritrean parliament and formally annexed Eritrea. The Eritrean secessionist movement organized the Eritrean Liberation Front in 1961 and fought the Eritrean War of Independence until Eritrea gained de facto independence in 1991. Eritrea gained de jure independence in 1993 after an independence referendum.
Modern Eritrea is a multi-ethnic country with nine recognized ethnic groups, each of which has a distinct language. The most widely spoken language is Tigrinya. The others are Tigre, Saho, Kunama, Nara, Afar, Beja, Bilen and Arabic. Tigrinya, Arabic and English serve as the three working languages. Most residents speak languages from the Afroasiatic family, either from the Ethiopian Semitic languages or Cushitic branches. In Eritrea, ethnic Tigrinyas make up about 50% of the population, with the Tigre people constituting around 30% of inhabitants. In addition, there are several Nilo-Saharan-speaking Nilotic ethnic groups. Most people in the country adhere to Christianity or Islam, with a small minority adhering to traditional faiths.
Eritrea is a unitary one-party presidential republic and a de facto totalitarian dictatorship, in which national legislative and presidential elections have never been held. Isaias Afwerki has served as president since its official independence in 1993. The country's human rights record is among the worst in the world. The Eritrean government has dismissed these allegations as politically motivated. Eritrea is a member of the African Union, the United Nations, and is an observer state in the Arab League alongside Brazil and Venezuela. It was part of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development until withdrawing in December 2025, "accusing the organisation of 'becoming a tool against' countries like itself."
The name Eritrea is derived from the ancient (originally Greek) name for the Red Sea, the Erythraean Sea (Ἐρυθρὰ Θάλασσα Erythra Thalassa, based on the adjective ἐρυθρός erythros "red"). It was first formally adopted in 1890, with the formation of Italian Eritrea (Colonia Eritrea). The name persisted throughout subsequent British and Ethiopian occupation, and was reaffirmed by the 1993 independence referendum and 1997 constitution.
Madam Buya, a fossil found at an Eritrean archaeological site by Italian anthropologists, has been identified as among the oldest hominid fossils found to date. This fossil has been said to reveal significant stages in human evolution and to represent a possible link between the earlier Homo erectus and an archaic Homo sapiens. Her remains have been dated to 1 million years old, making her the oldest skeletal find of her kind. It is believed that the Danakil Depression in Eritrea was a major site of human evolution and may contain other archaeological links between Homo erectus hominids and anatomically modern humans.
During the last interglacial period (roughly 130,000 to 115,000 years ago), the Red Sea coast of Eritrea was occupied by early anatomically modern humans. It is believed that the area was on the route out of Africa that some scholars suggest was used by early humans to colonize the rest of the Old World. In 1999, the Eritrean Research Project Team (which was composed of Eritrean, Canadian, American, Dutch, and French scientists) discovered a Paleolithic site with stone and obsidian tools dated to more than 125,000 years old, near the Gulf of Zula, south of Massawa, along the Red Sea littoral. The tools are believed to have been used by early humans to harvest marine resources such as clams and oysters.
Tools found in the Barka Valley, dating from 8,000 BC, appear to offer the first concrete evidence of human settlement in the area. Research also shows that many of the ethnic groups of Eritrea were the first to inhabit these areas.
Excavations in and near Agordat, in central Eritrea, yielded the remains of an ancient pre-Aksumite civilization known as the Gash Group. This included ceramics dated to between 2,500 and 1,500 BC.
Around 2,000 BC, parts of Eritrea were likely part of the Land of Punt, a kingdom first mentioned in the twenty-fifth century BC. It was known for producing and exporting gold, aromatic resins, blackwood, ebony, ivory, and wild animals. The region is known from ancient Egyptian records of trade expeditions, especially a well-documented expedition to Punt in approximately 1,469 BC, during the reestablishment of disrupted trade routes by Hatshepsut and shortly after the beginning of her rule as the pharaoh of ancient Egypt.
Excavations at Sembel found evidence of an ancient, pre-Aksumite civilization in greater Asmara. This culture is believed to have been among the oldest pastoral and agricultural communities in East Africa. Artifacts at the site have been dated to between 800 BC and 400 BC, contemporaneous with other pre-Aksumite settlements in the Eritrean and Ethiopian highlands during the mid-first millennium BC.
Dʿmt was a kingdom that existed from the tenth to fifth centuries BC in what is now Eritrea and northern Ethiopia. Evidence of a massive temple complex at Yeha suggests that it was most likely Dʿmt's capital. Qohaito, often identified as the town of Koloe in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, and Matara were important Dʿmt cities located in southern Eritrea. Native Ancient South Arabian texts provide contemporary written documentation, including royal inscriptions and dedicatory texts. They mention local kings, such as Lmn, as well as local deities, such as the goddess ḏt-Ḥmn.
The realm developed irrigation schemes, used plows, grew millet, and made iron tools and weapons. After Dʿmt fell in the fifth century BC, the plateau was dominated by smaller successor kingdoms. This lasted until the first century, when one of these polities, the Kingdom of Aksum, was able to reunite the area.
The Kingdom of Aksum (or Axum) was a trading empire centered in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia. It existed from approximately 100–940 AD, growing from the proto-Aksumite Iron Age period around the fourth century BC and achieving prominence by the first century AD.
According to the medieval Liber Axumae (Book of Aksum), Aksum's first capital, Mazaber, was built by Itiyopis, son of Cush. The capital was later moved to Axum in northern Ethiopia. The kingdom used the name "Ethiopia" as early as the fourth century.
The Aksumites erected a number of large stelae, which served a religious purpose in pre-Christian times. One of these granite columns, the Obelisk of Aksum, is the largest such structure in the world, standing at 90 feet (27 metres). Under Ezana (fl. 320–360), Aksum later adopted Christianity.
Christianity was the first world religion adopted in modern Eritrea. The oldest monastery, Debre Sina, dates back to the fourth century, Debre Libanos was built in the late fifth or early sixth century. Originally located in the village of Ham, it was moved to an inaccessible location on the edge of a cliff below the Ham plateau. Its church contains the Golden Gospel, a metal-covered bible dating to the thirteenth century, during which Debre Libanos was a seat of religious power.
In the seventh century AD, early Muslims from Mecca, at least companions of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, sought refuge from Qurayshi persecution by travelling to the kingdom, a journey known in Islamic history as the First Hijrah. They reportedly built the first African mosque: the Mosque of the Companions in Massawa.
The kingdom is mentioned in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea as an important market place for ivory, which was exported throughout the ancient world. At the time, Aksum was ruled by Zoskales, who also governed the port of Adulis. The Aksumite rulers facilitated trade by minting their own Aksumite currency.
Pre-colonial Eritrea had four distinct regions, divided by geography and in limited contact with each other. The Abyssinian, Tigrinya-speaking Christians controlled the highlands, the nomadic Tigre and Beni Amer clans the western lowlands, the Arabic Muslims the regions Massawa and Dahlak, and the pastoralist Afars the Dankalia region.
After the decline of Aksum, the Eritrean highlands fell under the domain of the Christian Zagwe dynasty, and later the control of the Ethiopian Empire. Its coastal territories were also under the Adal Sultanate during the reign of Sultan Badlay. The area was first known as Ma'ikele Bahri ("between the seas/rivers", i.e. the land between the Red Sea and the Mereb river), and later renamed the Medri Bahri ("Sea land" in Tigrinya). The region, ruled by a local governor called the Bahr Negash, was first documented in an obscure land grant of the 11th-century Zagwe king Tatadim. He considered the unnamed Bahr Negash one of his seyyuman or "appointed ones". Ethiopian Emperor Zara Yaqob strengthened imperial presence in the area by increasing the power of the Bahr Negash and placing him above other local chiefs, establishing a military colony of settlers from Shewa, and forcing the Muslims on the coast to pay tribute.
The first Westerner to document a visit to Eritrea was Portuguese explorer Francisco Álvares in 1520. He recounted his journey through the principality ruled by the Bahr Negash, highlighting three key cities, with Debarwa as the capital. He then detailed the border demarcation at the Mereb River with the province of Tigray and recounted the difficulties in transporting certain goods across the border. His books have the first description of the local powers of Tigray and the Bahr Negash.
The contemporary coast of Eritrea formed a route to the region of Tigray, where the Portuguese had a small colony, and to the interior Ethiopian allies of the Portuguese. Massawa was also the stage for the 1541 landing of troops by Cristóvão da Gama in the military campaign that eventually defeated the Adal Sultanate in the battle of Wayna Daga in 1543.
By 1557, the Ottomans had succeeded in occupying all of northeastern present-day Eritrea for the following two decades, an area that stretched from Massawa to Swakin in Sudan. The territory became an Ottoman governorate, known as the Habesh Eyalet, with a capital at Massawa. When the city became of secondary economic importance, the administrative capital moved across the Red Sea to Jeddah. The Turks tried to occupy the highlands of Eritrea in 1559, but withdrew after they encountered resistance, pushed back by the Bahri Negash and highland forces. In 1578 they tried to expand into the highlands with the help of Bahri Negash Yisehaq, who had switched alliances due to a power struggle. Ethiopian Emperor Sarsa Dengel made a punitive expedition against the Turks in 1588 in response to their raids in the northern provinces, and apparently, by 1589, they were once again compelled to withdraw to the coast. The Ottomans were eventually driven out in the last quarter of the sixteenth century. However, they retained control over the seaboard until the establishment of Italian Eritrea in the late 1800s.
In 1734, the Afar leader Kedafu established the Mudaito Dynasty in Ethiopia, which later also came to include the southern Denkel lowlands of Eritrea, thus incorporating the southern Denkel lowlands into the Sultanate of Aussa. The northern coastline of Denkel was dominated by a number of smaller Afar sultanates, such as the Sultanate of Rahayta, the Sultanate of Beylul and the Sultanate of Bidu.
The boundaries of present-day Eritrea were established during the Scramble for Africa. On 15 November 1869, the ruling local chief sold lands surrounding the Bay of Assab to the Italian missionary Giuseppe Sapeto, on behalf of the Rubattino Shipping Company. The area served as a coaling station along the shipping lanes introduced by the recently completed Suez Canal. In 1882, the Italian government formally took possession of the Assab colony from its commercial owners and expanded their control to include Massawa (and most of the Eritrean coastal lowlands) after the Egyptians withdrew from Eritrea in February 1885.
In the power vacuum that followed the 1889 death of Emperor Yohannes IV, Gen. Oreste Baratieri occupied the highlands along the Eritrean coast and Italy proclaimed the establishment of Italian Eritrea, a colony of the Kingdom of Italy. In the Treaty of Wuchale (It. Uccialli) signed the same year, Menelik II of Shewa, a southern Ethiopian kingdom, recognized the Italian occupation of his rivals' lands of Bogos, Hamasien, Akkele Guzay, and Serae in exchange for guarantees of financial assistance and continuing access to European arms and ammunition. His subsequent victory over rival kings and enthronement as Emperor Menelik II (r. 1889–1913) made the treaty formally binding upon the entire territory.
In 1888, the Italian administration launched its first development projects in the new colony. The Eritrean Railway was completed to Saati in 1888, and reached Asmara in the highlands in 1911. The Asmara–Massawa Cableway was the longest line in the world during its time but was later dismantled by the British in World War II. Besides major infrastructural projects, the colonial authorities invested significantly in the agricultural sector. They also oversaw the provision of urban amenities in Asmara and Massawa, and employed many Eritreans in public service, particularly in the police and public works departments. Thousands of Eritreans were concurrently enlisted in the Italian army, serving during the Italo-Turkish War in Libya as well as the First and Second Italo-Abyssinian Wars.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Eritrea”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.