Yes, they eat the same food, look the same, have the same religion, speak kind of the same and
have the same general historical roots, but
Do not! call these people Ethiopians!
[Intro playing]
♪ it's time to learn geography ♪
♪ NOW ♪
Hey Everybody, I'm your host Barby
Did you know that Italy tried to take over parts of Africa? Yeah, and it didn't last that long
and it didn't end very well. But it happened.
But First!
Eritrea prides itself on its location, here's why:
Eritrea is located on the Horn of Africa
on the East Side bordering the Red Sea
to the East, bordered by Sudan, Ethiopia, and
Djibouti. In addition to the mainland domain,
They also administer the Dahlak Archipelago,
Just off the coast, consisting of 124
small islands, only two of which are permanently inhabited.
Nora and Dohul.
As well as a few of the Hanish islands that they had a huge dispute over Yemen with
and the South Red Sea islands in the south.
The country is divided up into six regions
with the capital and largest city Asmara located
in the central Ma'ekel region.
The country operates five main airports,
the largest ones being Asmara and the former capital
when it was under the Italians, Massawa off the coast.
Although Eritrea has the second largest coastline along the Red Sea,
after Egypt, not many people live there.
Other than the cities of Massawa and Assab,
most Eritreans live inland, especially in the areas surrounding the capital.
This is partially due to the fact that
like some other countries we'll cover in future episodes,
Eritrea has a generally dry and inhospitable coast.
I mean the South Red Sea Region is kinda classified
as one of the hottest areas on the planet.
Nonetheless, they take their coastline seriously.
When you own land along one of the busiest trading routes on the planet,
you TACKLE that bad boy!
and tariff it like a boss.
I mean, unless your constituents kinda start hating you and then they put up an embargo-
but hey! They'll come crawling back.
They even set up camp and even have an exclave on the Southernmost border with Djibouti
on the Dumaira peninsula because they were like
"We wanna get close as we can to that Bab el-Mandeb strait!"
Home to quite a few archaeological sites like the ones in Qohaito, Matara,
and Senafe with the Aksumite (Axumite) ruins,
many of which are yet to be explored,
As well as a plethora of centuries-old churches,
monasteries, mosques, and mausoleums,
hidden along the cliffs on the outskirts of towns.
The point is, with whatever land that they do have,
they work to the best of their ability to feed their
ever-growing population...
Let's explain:
Now, yes- as mentioned before,
many of the places in Eritrea's coasts are generally hot,
and dry- which to no surprise
is why the camel is actually the national animal-
but that's only one part of the country. Surprisingly, they have quite a contrasting land makeup.
Just like we mentioned in the Djibouti episode, the general area that Eritrea is located in is a hot mess
when it comes to three tectonic plates:
The Somali, African, and Arabian.
All three of these converge into an area known as the Afar triangle-
Basically, the land is tearing itself apart.
Eritrea is located right at the fork of the East African rift,
including the Danakil depression, shared with Ethiopia,
being labeled as the hottest place on Earth.
Therefore the rift creates coastal highlands
the results looks like a backwards rain shadow effect
in which the coasts are dry and hot,
and the inland areas are fertile and green.
This is also why the majority of the population lives inland
in addition this gives Eritrea a few volcanoes most of which are Holocene and extinct
but then again Nabro was thought to be extinct
until it kind of went buck wild in 2011
inland, you can find a range of landscapes
from subtropical rainforests like like the ones at Filfil
or you can find green precipitous cliffs and canyons in the southern highlands
despite their lush interior there still is an issue with desertification and drought
The entire population is required by law starting at age 15 to take a month off
and terrace hillsides with rocks to prevent erosion and hold in moisture
eighty percent of people live off of agriculture
in which crops like barley, beans, lentils, sorghum
and the interestingly small grain teff is grown
animals thrive in many parts of the country especially in the lush interior regions
over five hundred different species of birds can be found as well as mammals
like warthogs, aardvarks, hares, gazelles and hyraxes
in terms of predators Eritrea seems to have more canine species than feline
wild dogs, golden wolves and jackals and hyenas dominate the highlands and plains
Resource wise Eritrea actually has a pretty decent diversified economy
However, two things they thrive off of are livestock and gold
specifically sheep and goats in the livestock
gold has actually been mined here for centuries and makes up about
eh, fifteen or so percent of the exports
and hold on your horses though
even though they have a lot of gold they still have quite a ways to go
in terms of economic development
which gets a little controversial
Let's uh… lets discuss that in:
Okay so, like mentioned before
Eritreans and Ethiopians will admit that they both have incredibly similar cultures
traditions, beliefs, systems and even language structures
In every reasonable sense they are kind of like cousins
However, do NOT call Eritreans, Ethiopians!
First of all, the country has about six and a half million people
and has doubled it's population since the 1990s
The country is made up of nine distinct ethnic groups
The largest ones being the Tigrinya at fifty-five percent
and Tigre at thirty percent
and the remainder comes from groups like the
Saho, Kunama, Bilen, Rashaida and others
Eritrea is on the only two countries
that uses the only indigenous African writing system in the world that's still used
which, by the way, side note:
An Abugida is an alpha syllabic writing system
similar to Arabic and Hebrew
that incoporates consonant vowel clusters into syllable character units
the word 'abugida' even came from four letters of the ge'ez alphabet
A bu gi and Da
So, basically if you want to write something like the word house
It would kind of look something like this
The writing system is used primarily to write Tigrinya, Tigre and Amharic in Ethiopia
All three languages are pretty similar
and if they listen really hard Eritreans and Ethiopians that speak these languages
can kind of understand each other enough to get by
It's kinda like Italian, Spanish and Portuguese
Now, here's the thing:
when Eritreans and Ethiopians meet each other the first question they typically as is
Are you "Habesha"
and then they ask what country they're from
So what exactly is Habesha?
Habesha people are incredibly unique Semitic mixed African people
that can only be found in this area
over a millennia Semetic people have mixed in and created this beautiful new group of people
found nowhere else
The Habehsa
A little bit over half the population adheres to Christianity
Predominantly Coptic Eritrean Orthodox Church
Where as the majority of the remaining population is mostly Sunni Muslims
They also use the Type-C plug outlet
They generally drive on the right side of the road
and the currency is the Nazca
Now, because of the Italian occupation Eritrea has like a little bit of Italian twang to it
where some of the buildings and shops have clearly influenced architectural styles
Pizza shops, cafes and cappuccino and espresso are all over
and many of the residents especially the older generation in urban areas
can actually still speak and understand Italian
Okay now, this is where the distinctions really going to start to come out
Let's talk politics
Eritrea kind of gets a bad label from the west
because of some of the harsh policies that the government adheres to
Some even have gone so far as to label it as the North Korea of Africa
In the simplest way I can put this, The modern day area of Eritrea was most likely this site
of the ancient land of Punt
Fast forward, and after centuries of other empires and nations taking over
until they finally got their independence from Ethiopia in 1993
Guys, I'm on a time constraint
We don't have time for full historic lessons. Just look it up yourselves
Basically to this day Isaias Afewerki has been president since independence in 1993
and the country operates in a strange one party system that has…
How can I put this
rather intense social policies?
Everybody, male or female, are required to serve military conscription by the age of 18
and continue with national service
It's estimated that about a third of the country's military
in the war against Ethiopia were actually women
Originally national service was supposed to be for 18 months
but the policy changed and now it's kind of like an indefinite amount of time
until the government deems complete
This has been a huge hotbed of controversy for many of the citizens
since some have ended up serving for years
and really have no say in it
This has also caused quite a few Eritreans to leave on a daily basis
to avoid the conscription laws
The government defends itself by saying they strongly emphasize strength and wealth of a unified nation
that works moving forward together
This is also one of the reasons Eritrea doesn't accept most forms of foreign aid
believing that handouts will enable the citizens into and unhealthy dependency
The government has actually kind of done a relatively good job at prioritizing the national budget towards
education and health though
This has in return helped them reach their goals of essentially eradicating Polio
and most cases of Malaria in the entire country
The problem though is there's almost no economic movement
especially in the private sector with an average annual income of around six hundred dollars a year
So essentially the people are fairly healthy
but… poor
Cycling is the popular sport out here though
and they actually host one of the most difficult routes in the world
the Asmara-Keren road
A lot of people from all over the world likes cycling that road for some reason
Let's talk more about the people who uh… kind of interact with this country shall we?
Eritrea's kind of well…
if we're gonna be completely honest
let's just say they kind of isolate themselves a little bit
They've made enemies with pretty much all of their neighbors
you know, with battles and border disputes and wars with all of them
even Yemen
However, recently Sudan has been kind of been fixing things up a little bit
but they still have some issues
This means that they kind of have to look outwards for diplomacy
Now here's the most confusing circumstances:
For some reason they are friendly with both Israel and… Iran
The president has gone to Israel for medical treatments
and conducts business with them well
but also has visited the president of Iran and has made friendly ties with them
but they are also an observer state of the Arab league
So essentially they do have some friends
but they just can't be in a room with all their friends at the same time
Some Eritreans might say that on a fiscal level Qatar and China might be their close friends
but no necessarily their best, since they've invested heavily in their commerce and business
It's complicated
Their best friends are kind of…
themselves honestly
In conclusion, yes Eritrea has some issues no denying that
but it's also a land overflowing with deep ancient history infused with Semitic African influences
Coastal sea lovers with a few leftover shavings of Italian spice mixed in there
and that's… that's pretty unique isn't it
Stay tuned! Estonia is coming up next!