Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country situated in the Horn of Africa that has been landlocked since the independence of its northern neighbor Eritrea in 1993. Apart from Eritrea to the north, Ethiopia is bordered by Sudan to the west, Kenya to the south, Djibouti to the northeast, and Somalia to the east.
Ethiopia is one of the oldest nations in the world and Africa's second-most populous nation. It has yielded some of the oldest traces of humanity, making it an important area in the process of human evolution.
The best known Ethiopian cuisine consists of various vegetable or meat side dishes and entrees, usually a wat, or thick stew, served atop injera, a large sourdough flatbread. One does not eat with utensils, but instead uses injera to scoop up the entrees and side dishes. Traditional Ethiopian cuisine employs no pork or shellfish of any kind, as it is forbidden in the Islamic, Jewish, and Ethiopian Orthodox Christian faiths. It is also very common to eat from the same big dish in the center of the table with a group of people.
At 435,071 square miles (1,127,127 km² ), Ethiopia is the world's 27th-largest country (after Colombia). It is comparable in size to Bolivia, and is about two-thirds as large as the US state of Alaska.
The major portion of Ethiopia lies on the Horn of Africa, which is the eastern-most part of the African landmass. Bordering Ethiopia is Sudan to the west, Djibouti and Eritrea to the north, Somalia to the east, and Kenya to the south. Within Ethiopia is a massive highland complex of mountains and dissected plateaus divided by the Great Rift Valley, which runs generally southwest to northeast and is surrounded by lowlands, steppes, or semi-desert. The great diversity of terrain determines wide variations in climate, soils, natural vegetation, and settlement patterns.
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