The river has no single origin point, but is made from two major river systems as tributaries. The White Nile and Abay (Blue Nile). The White and Blue Nile are also giants in their own right and have multiple tributaries. Usually, rivers have some kind of native and relatable names, but naming them after colors sounds so professional and recent for a river that has been flowing for 30 million years.

The Name

The name “Nile” comes from the ancient Greek word Neilos (Νεῖλος), which was later Latinized as Nilus. The Greek term itself is widely believed to have originated from the ancient Semitic root word nahal (or naḥal), which translates to a “valley” or a “river valley”.

Interestingly, the people who actually lived along the river in ancient times did not call it the Nile. The ancient Egyptians, who spoke the Kemet language, called the river Ḥ’pī or iteru (often written as itrw), which simply translated to “great river” or “waters”. Similarly, in the Old Testament of the Bible, the river is never explicitly named and is referred to simply as “yeor”, meaning “the river” in Hebrew.

The ancient Greeks and Romans only knew the lower portion of the river (in Egypt and northern Sudan) and called that combined waterway Neilos (or Nilus in Latin). Because the Greeks and Roman texts formed the foundation of European geographic knowledge, European mapmakers universally called the main river just “The Nile.”

As Arab traders and scholars pushed south into Sudan during the Middle Ages, they identified the two distinct branches merging at Khartoum, then came the distinction based on color.

The colored names were supposedly given from the “actual” visual appearance of the water, which is dictated by the specific type of soil and sediment each river carries along its journey.

The White Nile moves slowly through large, shallow wetlands from the Victoria Lake area to the Sud Valley in South Sudan. Along the way, it picks up light-colored, fine clay. This suspended clay gives the water a pale, milky, and grayish-white tint.

Whereas our Blue Nile rushes down from the steep northern highlands with incredible force during the rainy season. In every rainy season, it tears up rich, dark volcanic soil from the mountains and takes it to Khartoum, hence the very dark, muddy brown or nearly black color.

So where did the “Blue” come from?

The color-coded names we use globally today were coined by early Arabic-speaking locals and geographers in Sudan. If you stand in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, which is exactly where the two rivers meet, the visual contrast becomes clear. You can literally see a dark, heavy river crashing into a lighter, milky one.

Because of this dramatic river overlap, they named it Bahr al-Abyad (White Nile) and Bahr al-Azraq (Blue/Dark Nile). The names were vernacular, organically coined around the confluence where the two distinct rivers meet. The word azraq is particularly interesting here. In modern Arabic, it translates to “blue,” but historically, the term was often used to describe things that were incredibly dark or black. It was essentially meant to be the “Dark Nile.”

In the Medieval Islamic Era (10th–15th Century), prominent Arab geographers and historians, such as Al-Masudi (in the 10th century) and the Egyptian historian Al-Maqrizi (in the 15th century), wrote extensively about the hydrology of the Nile, and they clearly documented the distinct physical characteristics of the Ethiopian branches versus the equatorial branches.

The specific Arabic terms Bahr al-Azraq and Bahr al-Abyad became firmly established as standard geographical identifiers during the era of the Funj Sultanate (1504–1821), an Islamic kingdom whose capital, Sennar, was located directly on the Blue Nile.

By the 16th century, these names were the undisputed local terms used for trade and navigation. When European explorers finally arrived to map the region centuries later, like the Scottish traveler James Bruce, they simply took the existing, centuries-old Arabic names used by the locals and translated them literally into English as the “White Nile” and “Blue Nile.”

Because the Europeans approached the Nile and explored it upwards ( from the Mediterranean to Khartoum, then to the equator and Ethiopian highlands), they took the name from the Sudanese side and took it internationally. This means that if James Bruce started exploring the Nile from Lake Tana in 1770, the Blue Nile would probably be named the Abay River globally.

The Volume

The Nile used to discharge roughly 84 to 88 billion cubic meters (BCM) per year into the Mediterranean Sea. This is before the completion of the Aswan High Dam in 1970. Today, the Aswan High Dam, immense agricultural diversion, municipal extraction, and natural evaporation in the desert heat, lets only about 3 to 5 BCM of water physically reach the Mediterranean. The drop in discharge to the Mediterranean Sea, form 80 BCM to around 10 BCM, was an environmental disaster, and it will be its own topic for another time.

The Nile River basin has primarily two broad regional feeding systems, but the vast majority of its discharge volume comes from the Ethiopian highlands. The two major tributary systems are:

The Ethiopian Highlands (approx. 85% of total flow): Ethiopia contributes to the Nile via three sub-basin systems: -

• The Blue Nile (Abay): The powerhouse of the system, providing up to 60% of the Nile River’s total annual volume. During Ethiopian winter (ክረምት), its contribution surges to nearly 70%

• The Atbara River (Tekeze and Mereb Rivers): Contributes roughly 13% to 20%. It is highly seasonal, delivering a massive surge of water during the rainy season but often drying up into isolated pools during the dry months

• The Sobat River: Contributes about 14%. While it originates in the Ethiopian highlands (as the Baro-Akobo river system), it flows west and feeds into the White Nile, supplying a significant portion of the White Nile’s volume before it reaches Khartoum.

The Equatorial Lakes Region (approx. 15% of total flow):

This is the White Nile, sourced from the Great Lakes region around Lake Victoria. This system contributes the remaining 14% to 15% of the total annual flow of what we call the Nile River annual discharge. While its overall volume is much smaller, it is heavily buffered by natural lakes and the massive Sudd wetland in South Sudan. This provides a slow, consistent flow year-round, making the White Nile the critical life-support system for the river during the dry season when the Ethiopian tributaries temporarily shrink.

The Human Geography

Today, the river passes through 11 sovereign nations with a population of around 500 million people. These countries are:

The Deep Upstream (White Nile Sources)

• Burundi: Home to the Ruvyironza River (part of the Kagera River system), which is generally considered the most distant, southernmost source of the White Nile

• Rwanda: Also shares the Kagera River basin, which eventually flows into Lake Victoria

• Tanzania: Bordering Lake Victoria, which acts as the massive natural reservoir for the White Nile

• Kenya: Also borders Lake Victoria and contains rivers that drain into the lake’s catchment area

• Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC): Shares Lake Edward and Lake Albert, which feed directly into the White Nile system

• Uganda: The White Nile officially exits Lake Victoria here (often called the Victoria Nile at this stage) and journeys northward through the country

The Eastern Upstream (Blue Nile & Atbara Sources)

• Ethiopia: The source of the Blue Nile (from Lake Tana), the Sobat, and the Atbara rivers. Ethiopia provides roughly 85% of the Nile’s total water volume

• Eritrea: Shares a portion of the Tekeze/Setit river basin, which eventually feeds into the Atbara River (the Nile’s final major tributary)

The Midstream (The Convergence)

• South Sudan: South Sudan does not have major tributaries that add net water to the Nile. Instead, South Sudan is home to the Sudd wetland. As the White Nile enters this massive, shallow swamp from Uganda, the river actually splinters and slows down. The intense heat causes roughly half of the river’s incoming water to evaporate before it ever leaves the country. So, rather than adding to the Nile, South Sudan acts as a massive natural sponge that delays and stabilizes the flow.

• Sudan: Sudan is essentially the mixing bowl of the Nile, but it generates almost no water itself. The White Nile flows in from the south, the Blue Nile flows in from the east (Ethiopia), and the two merge in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum.

Further north in Sudan, the Atbara River (also originating in Ethiopia and Eritrea (Setit River) joins the main Nile just south of the Egypt border. After the Atbara joins, not a single major tributary joins the Nile for the rest of its journey.

The Downstream (The Destination)

· Egypt: Egypt contributes absolutely no natural tributaries to the Nile. It’s the final stretch of the river. By the time the river crosses the border from Sudan into Egypt, it is entirely on its own. Whatever is left after the Aswan Reservoir, the river only loses water to massive evaporation under the Saharan sun, to seepage into shallow aquifers, and to a massive human diversion into canals, farms, and cities before finally reaching the Mediterranean.

The Hydropolitics – Context

Before the above 11 nations sharing the Nile River today, the river used to flow in various indigenous kingdoms, from ancient Egypt to Axum. The water flows through tribal lands, grazing grasslands, uncharted wetlands, and gorges.

However, the competing interests over the river and skirmish strated in the imperial ages of the 19th century. Ottoman rulers of Egypt were a bit adventurous. In the 1820s, the Egyptian ruler Muhammad Ali successfully invaded and conquered the present-day Sudan. He wanted to secure control of the Nile, and succeeded in pushing his empire to the south. This created a unified “Turco-Egyptian” Sudan that lasted for decades.

Later, in the 1870s, Muhammad Ali’s grandson, Khedive Ismail, decided he wanted absolute control over the entire Nile Basin and launched a massive, well-armed military campaign south-east into the Ethiopian highlands. This sparked the Egyptian-Ethiopian War (1874–1876). Ethiopia fiercely defended its mountains and homeland, completely crushing the invading Egyptian army at the battles of Gundet and Gura. Kudos to Emperor Yohanes and Ras Alula Abanega.

The recent geopolitical contention started after Britain took Egypt in 1882. Britain, the “mistrust sauce” you use to cook conflicts between neighboring countries, took Egypt from the Ottomans. At the time, Egypt was technically a province of the Ottoman Empire. However, a powerful local dynasty founded by a leader named Muhammad Ali had made Egypt almost entirely autonomous.

By the late 19th century, Egypt had gone heavily into debt to European banks to fund massive modernization projects, most notably the Suez Canal. While the Muhammad Ali dynasty was on the throne and ruling Egypt, and officially authorized the project, the Suez Canal was fundamentally driven by European ambition, engineering, and borrowed capital. While European engineers drew up the blueprints and managed the corporation, the Egyptian rulers supplied the manpower and shared the capital expense. The project ran massively over budget. Sa’id Pasha’s successor, Khedive Isma’il, borrowed heavily from European banks to pay for Egypt’s portion of the canal, alongside his other lavish modernization projects that bankrupted his ruling dynasty.

Subsequently, in 1875, under the weight of this debt, the British government swooped in and bought Egypt’s shares of the Suez Canal for a fraction of its value. This gave the British Empire a massive controlling interest in the waterway and laid the foundation for the total control of Egypt.

Egypt was essential to the British Empire because it controlled the Suez Canal and produced the massive amounts of cotton needed to feed British textile mills in Europe. To guarantee that Egyptian cotton never went dry, Britain realized they needed to control the entire river. Just like the predecessors. Rulers changed, but the equation remained the same.

Over a few decades, they fully secured Egypt and moved south to Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, and later took Tanganyika (modern Tanzania) from the Germans. When you look at old colonial maps, the British essentially turned the Nile into one long, unbroken imperial water supply line, except for the Blue Nile and Ethiopia. They were never able to subjugate the fiercely independent Ethiopian empire, and controlled the Nile as we know it today.

The 1929 Treaty - Negotiating with Themselves

To legally lock down the water for the growing population and cotton industry, the British engineered the 1929 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty. Because Britain controlled both the downstream destination (Egypt and Sudan) and the upstream sources (East Africa), they essentially signed a treaty with themselves.

Britain officially recognized Egypt’s “natural and historical right” to the waters of the Nile. It is like your masters suddenly recognizing your rights for their exploitative gains, or your employer recognizing your right to eat the whole lunch buffet at the employees’ canteen to appease you. The British government gave lip service that no dams or irrigation projects would ever be built in their East African colonies if those projects threatened to reduce the volume of water reaching Egypt.

The 1959 Handshake

Fast forward to the 1950s as the British Empire began to collapse. Sudan gained independence in 1956. Realizing they needed to “secure their water rights” before the rest of the African colonies broke free, Egypt and Sudan (nations with 0 contribution to the waters of the Nile) signed a new bilateral agreement in 1959. They looked at the total annual flow of the river that comes to their border and simply divided it all between themselves. Egypt got 55.5 billion cubic meters, and Sudan got 18.5 billion cubic meters.

Crucially, they allocated zero water to Ethiopia, which sits on 85% of the water, or to the other eight upstream nations, effectively pretending those countries did not exist hydrologically. This treaty also gave Egypt the “green light” to build the massive Aswan High Dam.

They somehow think they can decide the amount of water that should come to their borders. Insane level of delusional colonial mindset. This agreement can be best described by Malcom X’s quote.

A decade later, Malcolm X explained this kind of mindset in his famous 1963 “Message to the Grass Roots” speech, where he breaks down the mentality of the “house Negro” during slavery. He explains how living in proximity to the master’s wealth caused the slave to adopt the master’s identity:

“The house Negro usually lived close to his master. He dressed like his master... He ate food that his master left on the table... So whenever that house Negro identified himself, he always identified himself in the same sense that his master identified himself. When his master said, ‘We have good food,’ the house Negro would say, ‘Yes, we have plenty of good food.’ ... When the master would be sick, the house Negro identified himself so much with his master he’d say, ‘What’s the matter, boss, we sick?’ ... He identified himself with his master, more than his master identified with himself.”

That is exactly how Egypt and Sudan felt in 1959 when they shook hands, not realizing they were the embodiment of their colonial masters whom they thought they were free from.

You might also be thinking about 14th-century historian Ibn Khaldun, who wrote about how defeated people adopt the mindset of those who hold power over them:

“The conquered always want to imitate the conqueror in his main characteristics. In his clothing, his crafts, and in all his distinctive traits and customs.”

Good thing, time changes most of the things, and humans are not stagnant. Today, half a century later, the river is shared by another 9 sovereign nations with their own aspirations, their own struggle to be free, to feed their own people and to be prosperous.

For these countries, the Nile or its tributaries are theirs, it is a resource to be utilized for the good of their people, it originates from their highland and springs, their lakes and their stream feeds the Nile, their forest and wetlands protects and nourish the river, and most importantly their leaders have an innate responsibly and mandate to feed their population, to bring electricity and energy to their people. Just like Egypt and Sudan, the governments of Burundi, Uganda, or Ethiopia want to build dams on the river, just like Aswan and Rosier Dam. The Ugandans or Ethiopians need to protect their people from seasonal floods, irrigate their plains, and feed their people.

The Era of Dams

With the 1959 treaty in hand, Egypt began constructing the Aswan High Dam (completed in 1970) to permanently control the seasonal flood and store years of water for its people. Sudan built the Roseires Dam on the Blue Nile (completed in 1966) for its own irrigation. Lake Nasser, Aswan’s reservoir, has a maximum gross storage capacity of approximately 162 to 169 billion cubic meters (BCM) at its peak, and after some upgrades, Roseires Dam’s maximum storage capacity has reached 7 to 7.4 billion cubic meters (BCM).

Meanwhile, as nations like Tanganyika (now Tanzania), Uganda, and Kenya were gaining independence, they introduced the Nyerere Doctrine, stating they would not be bound by colonial-era treaties they had no hand in negotiating. The political battle lines were drawn from the dawn of their independence. Egypt, with better economic might, started positioning itself as the sole guardian of the Nile and dictating the terms of the river and abusing its God-given existential lifeline.

In the midst of the Cold War, Haile Sealasie had the idea of building a dam. Feasibility studies and designs were underway, but Ethiopia’s ability to challenge Egypt was sidelined by internal chaos. The 1974 revolution overthrew Emperor Haile Selassie, plunging the country into civil war, and further economically weakening the country. The Soviets, who built the Aswan High Dam, and Derg’s ideological backers don’t want to change the status quo and power balance on the Nile, because Egypt, with its Suez, was more important than Ethiopia.

Gradually, the staunch socialist revolutionary government of Egypt normalizes relations with Israel, and its foreign policy shifted towards the West, and the Nile and Suez have become its bargaining chip. Whoever wants to have a safe path and access to Suez has to buy Egypt’s “existential threat” foul cry over the Nile.

The 1980s drought in Ethiopia became a brand, a nation ravaged by famine because of water mismanagement, and rain-dependent agriculture became a globally televised tragedy. Egypt also felt the drought. Obviously, if it doesn’t rain in the Ethiopian highlands, there won’t be enough water reaching Egypt. But the massive Lake Nasser reserves held back by the Aswan High Dam saved it from a similar crisis.

This event probably cemented Egypt’s belief that absolute control of downstream storage was an existential necessity, and they see what poor water management and lack of rain did to Ethiopia, and they said “Never!” which is very understandable.

After the Cold War ended, there were multiple global initiatives for cooperation, and one of them was the formation of the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) in 1999 between riparian countries to have a peaceful stage to govern and diplomatically coordinate the Nile River usage. However, beneath the smiles, downstream nations, i.e., Egypt and Sudan, wanted to protect their 1959 quotas, while upstream nations wanted a just and equitable sharing.

The NBI spent years drafting the Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA), also known as the Entebbe Agreement. It was designed to replace the old colonial treaties with a fair, equitable legal framework that included all countries sharing the river. Egypt and Sudan fiercely refused to sign the CFA because the framework did not explicitly guarantee their “historical” 1959 quotas. The upstream nations signed it anyway at a historic summit in Uganda, Entebbe, in May 2010, causing a massive diplomatic rift.

Soon, in early 2011, Egypt was engulfed in the Arab Spring. Coincidentally, Ethiopia announced the start of the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile.

Egypt relentlessly campaigned against Ethiopia to halt the construction. They claim Ethiopia “unilaterally” announced the construction. Ethiopia was opportunistic because it started the construction when Egypt was engulfed in the Arab Spring political turmoil, etc. However, prior notification is absolutely not the same as seeking permission. International law does not give downstream nations a veto over upstream development. Egypt, leaning on the colonial-era 1929 and 1959 treaties, was effectively demanding veto power over shared water that doesn’t originate from its territory nor contribute water to it. Ethiopia explicitly rejected that premise and continued.

On top of that, when GERD was announced, the Entebbe Agreement (CFA) had been signed by several upstream nations and was being ratified by the parliament of each signing member country to officially enter into international force. Egypt and Sudan had completely walked away from it. From Ethiopia’s perspective, they could not be legally bound to coordinate the dam’s launch through a treaty that their downstream neighbors fiercely rejected and refused to sign.

Ethiopia knew that, historically, Egypt has only been a bully and will never sign an equitable water share agreement. Their stance in Entebbe was clear, colonial and requires an exclusive Veto over any project on the Nile. For Ethiopia, acting “unilaterally” was a deliberate and necessary assertion of its sovereignty. Because Egypt refused to acknowledge any legal framework other than the 1959 pseudo-treaty, which gave Egypt 66% of the water, Ethiopia felt that waiting for a multilateral agreement would mean waiting forever. By putting bulldozers on the ground and starting construction, Ethiopia forced a new power equilibrium that completely bypassed the colonial guardrails.

Ethiopia did eventually formalize a diplomatic process because of immense diplomatic pressure and confrontational rhetoric. In 2015, Ethiopia, Egypt, and Sudan signed the Declaration of Principles (DoP) in Khartoum. This document acknowledged the reality of the GERD and established a framework for the three countries to cooperate on the filling guidelines and operations. Though, crucially, it still did not give Egypt the right to stop the dam. The Egyptian cry for a never-ending diplomatic negotiation tactic was to lock Ethiopia and other upstream nations in negotiations that will never come to fruition while holding them back from starting anything on the Nile.

Simply put, the Nile saga can be summarized as a downstream nation demanding a veto versus an upstream nation’s need to grow and utilize their own resources.

Ethiopia successfully finished the GERD, and its reservoir, Negat Lake can hold 75 BCM of water. GERD is now covering around 50% of the national electric energy needs, lighting millions of houses and powering the path to industrialization.

Following the precedent set by Ethiopia with the GERD announcement, several other upstream nations in the Nile Basin that signed the Entebbe Agreement have actively pursued and completed major hydroelectric projects on the Nile and its tributaries to address their own severe energy deficits.

Uganda inaugurated the 600MW Karuma Hydroelectric Power Station on Kyoga Nile in 2024, and another Hydro Electric Dam situated on the Victoria Nile in southern Uganda that generates 180MW came live before in 2019.

A joint regional initiative designed to share power equally among Rwanda, Tanzania, and Burundi came to fruition in 2024 when the Rusumo Falls Hydroelectric Project was inaugurated. It supplies 80MW to the countries’ national grid.

Sudan built another dam on Atbara, Upper Atbara, and Setit Dam. This twin-dam complex connects two major eastern tributaries and forms a common reservoir with a storage capacity of roughly 3.7 billion cubic meters and was inaugurated in 2017.

With all these mega dams and run-of-river power generation, Egypt’s water inflow to the Aswan High Dam didn’t really flinch. Lake Nasser holds two times more water than GERD, and it can safely feed Egypt for multiple years even if a single drop of the Nile didn’t arrive. The fear is not a water shortage. The fear is losing the master’s veto. And that, precisely, is the house Negro’s oldest and most tragic instinct, clinging to control over something that was never truly his to hoard in the first place.

I am still feeling last night’s win in my body like a soft and long hug. The adrenaline rush is now gone, and the euphoria subsides overnight, but I still couldn’t fully grasp and settle what happened last night. I am re-watching the game reviews, analysis, TikToks, memes, and tweets about the game, and I keep smiling and being amused.

This kind of important and late wins give you joy so thick you could spread it for days. The kind that comes only from a win that had to be dragged out of the earth with bare hands. Arsenal beat West Ham 1-0 at the London Stadium, and everything about it was SPECTACULAR! The fight, the defense, the goal, the referee, the drama, and most importantly, the scoreboard were the most beautiful.

Leandro Trossard scored in the 83rd minute, guiding a low shot through a forest of defending legs. But quickly the hope was shattered when, in the 95th minute, Callum Wilson thought he had equalized, and for the length of the VAR review, around 150 million Arsenal fans around the world and maybe more than a billion people watching the game hung on a screen with existential dread. The goal was finally disallowed because of a foul on David Raya in the scramble. I took a long breath. The final whistle blew shortly after. A sigh of relief, and a gasp of air when life returns to a fragile, crumbling clay. The relief was tectonic, I felt light instantly. I heard a scream from a distance, the whole neighborhood was screaming.

I realized I am not just watching a game on a screen. I am not screeching my soul for a team in a far country that is not bothered by my existence. I realized that the belonging I created with a club light year away is not different than the belonging I have with my people, my tribe, my country, or the ideological brotherhood I have with fellow sapience.

The thing is, football is a ritualized hunting and warfare that has a direct and continuous lineage from our hunter-gatherer times. I am watching the game as if the strongest of my tribe are out there hunting a mammoth, while fighting a Saber-toothed tiger for the same meal, and if they didn’t coordinate properly and got the mammoth first and managed to bring it back to our huts, my siblings, my extended family, the greater tribe, and myelf will perish of hunger.

The stress and anticipation our brain goes through watching an important game like this is neurologically similar to that of hunting in the wild. The dopamine reward system and the survival adrenaline rush don’t care whether you have scored a goal or brought down a gazelle. We have an ancient brain that uses the same mix of testosterone, oxytocin, and adrenaline, the same cocktail that forged survival with brute force and cooperation for millennia.

The same circuit that has been optimized for the jungle is hijacked and channeled into the game you are watching on the screen. The parallels between a coordinated hunting party and a football team are more or less similar.

In both, you have:

• Cooperative strategy: roles (strikers/hunters, midfielders/flankers, defenders/protectors) that must mesh in real time while your life is on the line

• Spatial awareness and territory: moving a ball (or a prey) into a scoring zone, protecting your own ground from other hunters, and knowing where to run and when to bow

• Visual communication: reading a teammate’s body language, pose, and position at a glance, which is exactly what made us successful persistence hunters.

• Adrenaline and risk: the physiological rush is almost identical. Heart rate spikes, tunnel vision narrows, and time seems to slow, which are hallmarks of ancient survival scenarios.

• The reward: the shared risk and joy, measurable success towards a goal, and the shame of coming back empty-handed, is weirdly similar to that of the group hunting of our distant ancestors.

However, our social structure has evolved way faster than our brain chemistry. Our brain still needs to process these neurochemicals the same way it used to for millions of years. But today, we don’t have to kill or die anymore for those brain circuits to activate, we can trick our brain by inventing games with less brutality but comparable emotional rewards and risks.

Today, football is sane. It’s the ideal politics for the democracies. Competition is the foundational algorithm of our survival instinct. It’s so deep that you don’t even have to notice it, your unconscious part of the brain will do it consistently behind the scenes. For most of human history, this competition for survival was settled with violence. Football offers a safer alternative where:

• Tribalism is channeled, but not destroyed. You can pour your passion into a collective identity, sing, chant, and even hate the opponent, but when the whistle blows, nobody has to die. At least physically.

• Hierarchy is displayed openly. Skill, leadership, courage, and sacrifice are visible, rewarded, and respected in a clear meritocracy. That is deeply satisfying to a male psyche shaped by coalitional competition.

• Defeat is survivable. Losing a match feels devastating for a moment, but it doesn’t mean the loss of your home, your food, or your wife and children, or worse, your life. It teaches resilience without permanent scars

• Shared joy and mourning bond men in ways modern life rarely allows. Anger and crying together when your team loses, or embracing strangers when they win, releases oxytocin and strengthens social bonds, just as celebrating a successful hunt or mourning a fallen comrade once did. This is why watching football outside in a lounge or with friends feels better than watching a game alone

• It has a ritual and dogmatic beliefs. You don’t need to sacrifice a chicken for the football gods to win a game, but there are plenty of replacements for that that are very ritualistic and dogmatic and that need some outsourcing of beliefs to the supernatural. Just like the hunting-gathering time, the agricultural time, or the Romans.

In this sense, football is a “sane” processing of the same social and political instincts that otherwise fuel violent ideological combat, or actual warfare. It lets men rehearse the deep, primordial scripts of “us vs. them” within a framework of rules, physical safety, and ideally with respect.

With all the pressure, especially when the game is as decisive as last night, the referee on that pitch is performing a miracle. But he is human, fallible. He is visibly, audibly, sometimes comically fallible. We shout at him, we despise him, or praise him, but he has to stay focused and grounded. And yet, within the boundaries of the match, his authority is absolute. The ball didn’t cross the line? Fine. Offside? Fine. My cortisol spikes, my appetite is suppressed, I call him names, I grunt, I blame all my irrational suffering on him, and then I stop. The whistle goes. I accept it whether I like it or not. Some decisions will linger with you for a long time, you probably will have remorse and regret, and some other decisions will quickly be forgotten. Whatever the decision, I don’t call my lawyer. I don’t assemble a congressional hearing. I don’t organize a coup. This is football, I will share my gratitude and sorrow with a fellow baller, and move on with my life. At the end of the day, the referee is the philosopher king.

This is the politics we dreamed of but never built. In the real democratic world, contested facts are brittle. Trust in institutions erodes because institutions are simultaneously powerful (they shape my life) and invisible (I never see the face of the person who made the decision). But in football, the referee inverts all of this. He is hyper-visible in his contrasting uniform, constantly observed, and his power evaporates the moment the game ends. He is probably the most accountable human I will encounter all week. No democratic leader I know of submits to being screamed at by thousands of citizens up to their final seconds in office, then quietly walks off and does it again next week. The referee probably walks home or uses public transport and rarely fears for his life, unlike our politicians.

The referee is a philosopher king wearing a microphone instead of a crown. He governs with an authority that does not require secrecy. His decisions may not always be the right ones or what I expect them to be, but they remain his decisions, and because we can localize our anger onto a face, a body, a name, it lets me discharge my emotions smoothly without the need for brute force. Football channels conflict without suppressing it.

Where us in our politics, conflict is either suppressed (through unaccountable bureaucracy) or weaponized (through partisan media and literal violence). But a football match offers an alternative third model, a sanctioned, ritualized, contained, and resolved conflict within a frame of mutually shared agreement. Handball or offside is not imposed on one team, it works equally on both, and these ideals are held to be true in far greater statistical probability than our political discourse. Football matches today are fairer than general elections.

Football resurrects the small-group dynamics that agrarian empires and industrial cities suppressed. In an 11-a-side match, you have the size of a typical hunter-gatherer hunting party, large enough for complex cooperation, small enough for every member to matter absolutely. It restores the human scale of belonging that modern anonymous societies don’t provide. Its a sharp reminder that when the stadium roars, we are hearing an echo from hundreds of thousands of years ago. And it might very well be one of the healthiest ways for men to conduct their politics, with loyalty, passion, and, crucially, with the final whistle that signals time to shake hands and walk home.

This is why, for men especially, football operates as a kind of politics without bloodshed. Politics as in the negotiation of group identity, hierarchy, territory, and competition.

But football is also geography, and it is multi-dimensional. It moves in space, time, and the layered meanings of human culture. A club is not just a club, it is a neighborhood, a dialect, a history, a rivalry of proximity, a set of sounds and anthems that pin you to a specific patch of the earth. It also transcends, here is me writing about a club in North London from Addis Ababa.

A team carries its ghosts, you can’t explain everything in football objectively or scientifically. There are mantras and human psyches that are proven to be true time and again, but you can’t argue them objectively. No matter how you try to make football as objective as possible, it will always be as human as possible, as subjective as it can be. Take the VAR decision last night, the decision was objective, but does that stop the opposing teams from crying a foul? When you watch a match, you are not just watching the present, you are watching layered history and cultural context, geographical roots. Football is a time machine where the past is never truly past, and where the present always reaches toward a future possibility, a title, a redemption, and a loss that are monumental.

This four-dimensional matrix of meaning creates a belonging that spans the globe, often with an intensity and solidarity that humbles religions. The club becomes a church without a creed, the jersey becomes the vestment, and match days are anticipated like Jum’a Friday. And the hymns are chants passed down through generations.

NORTH LONDON FOREVER!

I want to write about our coffee ceremony, especially the utensils we use to make and serve coffee. The Ethiopian coffee ceremony has the Jebena, a charcoal stove, Mankesheka ( coffee roasting pan), Rekebot (a mini table for coffee cups), and the iconic “sini”. But to your surprise, not everything is as indigenous or as native as you expected it to be; there are some caveats. Almost everything used in our coffee ceremony is locally sourced, made by Ethiopian hands, and has been more or less standardized and ubiquitous across the country.

Except for the “Sini”, our coffee cup is the only common utensil that is not produced locally but incorporated as the core part of our identity. This anomaly is because of the lack of a well-developed tradition of making ceramics in the region. Even though our coffee culture feels deeply native, our Sini is not. We Ethiopians don’t have a porcelain or ceramic manufacturing history. We mainly used red clay instead of porcelain from ancient times to make household items like the Jebena for coffee and different serving bowls, such as Taba (ጣባ). Ceramic products, including the infamous Sinis, are introduced to us via trade from continental Asia.

These white porcelain cups with red, green, or blue flower petal markings are so common and rooted in our coffee culture for centuries that I don’t think the average Joe has the slightest clue that these cups are not indigenous but imported.

Even beyond Ethiopia, the sini is revered as part of the traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony. Google “Ethiopian Coffee” and almost all results show our jebena and sini together. Every search for Ethiopian culture has a visual cue of the Sini. You can go to the next page after page, image after image, but all you see is the lovely white porcelain cups with floral patterns, portrayed as Ethiopian culture.

I came to question the origin of these Sinis for the first time when I went to the countryside to visit my grandparents. Sinis were a common sight, like every part of the country, but there was also a different type of cup, which is unique but widely available, like the Sinis.

It’s called “Quluu”, a gourd cup made from the calabash plant ( Lagenaria siceraria) aka, ቅል. They are made locally by artisans and are available in different sizes. These cups are very personalized, sometimes decorated, and usually old men and women carry them around wherever they go. My grandpa has two Quluus that he left in our house and uses whenever he comes. He only drinks coffee from his Quluu. He despises the small size of the common Sinis. I brought one to the office the other day to show my colleagues. It’s a beautiful artifact.

The average Quluu is bigger than the common Sini. Even though Quluu is primarily used for coffee, it can also be used for drinking milk or yogurt. Their size could range from something equivalent to two Sinis to the big ones being comparable to a big mug. Quluus, while the new ones have a natural light yellowish color, as they get older, they become darker and turn into shiny brown cups. The patina will give them an earthy color and distinct aroma.

From an anthropological point of view, gourds make a better case than porcelain for serving coffee. Long before porcelain ever reached our borders, our people were cutting gourds into vessels that met every household need. The bottle gourd or Clabash (Lagenaria siceraria) is one of Africa’s earliest domesticated plants. Archaeobotanical evidence suggests it was cultivated here over 10,000 years ago for its hollow fruits and versatile utility. Once dried, cured, and cut into shapes, these thick-walled gourds become indestructible cups, bowls, and containers. Because they have very bitter seeds, they need to be cleaned, dried, and cured properly by professional craftsmen and women. Gourds are very lightweight, easy to carry around, and widely available climbing plants that don’t need much attention to grow.

Gourd cups have many shapes and different names, but are mainly used to serve drinks. It has been used by various tribes across Ethiopia for a long time. Even today, in big cities, jugs made from calabash are used to pour the dough when making enjera.

In the Omo Valley, Dassanech and Hamar women hollow out giant calabashes to carry water or milk, and smaller, delicately cut gourds serve as drinking cups for tej and also for coffee. In Konso, they are used to drink Cheqa (ጨቃ), a traditional fermented drink. Gourd coffee cups in Arsi are called Quluu. Quluu is also common in Bale, Jimma, Borena, Guji, and Hararghe areas, sometimes with a different name. Gourd cups become a common and better choice than clay cups, because of their lightweight yet sturdy characteristics, hence a default cup for daily drinks, from water to coffee and tea or alcoholic beverages. They are also waterproof and, most importantly, lightweight, and you can simply carry them around.

But, how did imported porcelain become not only accepted but integral to Ethiopia’s coffee culture? The answer lies in our historical long ties to the Middle East and the Indian Ocean world. When coffee crossed the Red Sea and arrived in Yemen in the medieval period, the Arabs were already using small ceramic cups called “finjān” for drinking tea. The Tigrigna name for Sini is actually Fenjal, most probably derived from the Arabic word Finjan. As trade routes across the Red Sea and Indian Ocean bloomed, so did the circulation of luxury goods, including various ceramic plates and cups.

Archaeological evidence shows that ceramic cups were common in eastern Ethiopia during the Harla Kingdom, which occupies the present-day eastern part of Ethiopia. Harla was one of the most powerful kingdoms that rose after the fall of Axum around the 6th century. The imported porcelain cups and bowls were valued as exotic status symbols, and evidence shows it was used for display or exchanged as high-value gifts, rather than everyday cookware.

However, from the 10th to 14th centuries, during the Song and Yuan dynasties, China was mass exporting cheap ceramics via the Indian Ocean. Porcelain became the ideal material for these cups via global trade because it is relatively cheaper, thin, and translucent, keeps coffee hotter, and feels elegant in the hands. A maritime archaeology study of a Red Sea shipwreck (Sadana Island, off Sudan) offers a good snapshot. This late 17th-century wreck contained a mixed cargo of Chinese export porcelain meant for Middle Eastern markets. The shapes and decorations of the cups found in these archeological remnants show that, just as Chinese factories famously made special sets for Europe, they likewise catered to Islamic customs in the Middle East. For example, Sadana’s relics include many plates and cups decorated only with floral motifs, unmistakably similar to the present patterns that are found on our Sinis and Finjals across the Middle East. This evidence offers a clear view of the origin of our Sini hundreds of years ago.

By the 18th century, Chinese porcelain for coffee drinking was ubiquitous throughout the Middle East and East Africa. In the inland Ethiopian sultanate of Ifat and then Adal, archaeologists have found solid evidence of the use of white porcelain coffee cups with petal motifs along the caravan routes. The caravan trade along the Red Sea routes enabled Ethiopia, which had no ceramic tradition of its own, to connect its people to an international glasswork of trade and cultural exchange. Coffee culture thrived along these lines.

When Ethiopian beans became a staple sip, drinking them from fine imported cups became a sign of status and hospitality.

The explorer James Bruce (in the 1770s) and others wrote of Ethiopian nobles pouring buna from jebenas into delicate cups, noting their Chinese origin. By the late 1800s, the Italian consul in Harar mentioned that even village households might have one or two porcelain finjāns (imported via Zeila) for special guests. Although we lack a single definitive source from those periods in print, the archaeological record makes it clear that over centuries, finished porcelain cups traveled from China to Yemen, then to Ethiopia, and the broader Horn of Africa regions.

Over time, however, most communities switched to porcelain. The main reason is that porcelain has become so cheap, and trade volume has increased in magnitude. Rapid urbanization and national identity building brought the Sinis to the forefront of Ethiopian identity and made the Sinis a brand of the Ethiopian coffee ceremony.

Today, a generation of Ethiopians might not realize the cups are foreign. The word Sini (also used in Eritrea and Somalia) itself in Amharic simply means “cup,” which may have derived from our neighbors beyond the Red Sea.

In the end, the tiny Sini, despite being imported, wins the Gourd, which has been in service for multiple centuries. Sini is now an integral part of Ethiopia’s coffee story, a homegrown coffee passion enriched by distant influences. Like the beans themselves, the cup traveled from the humble origins of Far East ceramic clinkers to the world stage and back.

The original gourd cups may be a relic of our past and a symbol of traditional rural cultures, but they are still actively being used today across Ethiopia. All you have to do is look for them when you travel south and east. I, too, have two Quluus at home, mainly as an ornament and a reminder of my roots.

Until very recently, Sinis were imported, mainly from China, but we now have a local ceramic company producing bowls and Sinis in Ethiopia. Ironically, it’s still a Chinese company called Parlo Ceramics Products Manufacturing PLC.

This article was first published on The Coffee Capital.

Friend one: ሉሲ ስታገባ ሻማ ያዥ ነበረ….

Me, the ገገማ friend: You know Lucy is actually younger. Lucy is around 3.2 million years old. You can refer to Ardi, which is more than 4 million years old, and we even now have Kadaba, a 5.8 million-year-old primate fossil. So, if you are comparing him with Lucy, he can, technically, roast you back by comparing you with Ardi or Kadaba…..

Friend one: It doesn’t work like that. Am still going to be younger in any timeline. We could one-up each other all the way to the oldest thing ever found in Ethiopia, and I would still be eight months younger than him…

Fair enough. But what if we one-up further and further? What is the oldest thing ever found or still living within our borders? Not the oldest insult, the actual oldest thing.

I decided to find out.

We Ethiopians grow up proud of Lucy. Which is a good thing, but it fascinates me considering how deeply religious we are and still proud of a fossil that puts a question mark on the widely accepted “truth” of the creationist theory. We learned her name in school. We put her on tourism brochures. “Land of Origin,” we say, and we mean it. Lucy, at 3.2 million years old, is our opening argument in the great debate about where humanity began. Even though we have fossils way older than Lucy, she has become a brand, a common household name since her discovery in 1974.

Three million is not even that old in geological time. And more to the point, if we are searching for the oldest thing in Ethiopia, will she even make it to the podium? The answer, it turns out, is NO. She wouldn’t even make the top ten.

Ethiopia is a country so layered in time that “old” requires constant redefinition. The further you dig (literally and figuratively), the deeper the calendar goes. What begins as a search for one of the oldest things becomes a kind of archaeological vertigo. Rocks that predate complex life, fish whose ancestors breathed the Devonian air, a tree so ancient it probably was standing when the Zagwe dynasty fell. Ethiopia does not have the oldest thing. It has a whole family of contenders, each one the winner of its own category, each telling a different chapter of a story that stretches almost to the beginning of recognizable life on this planet.

So here, arranged from the merely ancient to the genuinely staggering, is that story. Let’s start from the “youngest” once:

The Oldest Standing Man-made Structure

In the Tigray region, about 50 kilometers Northeast of Aksum, sits the small town of Yeha. It is not on most people’s travel destination list because we barely hear about it, which is a crime. Because in the middle of Yeha, stands a Temple that has watched centuries pass. The Great Temple of Yeha was standing a millennium before the Axum Oblesik were built. This stone structure was built over 2,700 years ago by the then D’amat Civilization, believed to be the oldest standing building in Ethiopia.

The Aksum stelae were erected between the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, so roughly 300–400 AD. The Temple of Yeha dates to around 700 BC. That makes Yeha approximately 1,000 years older than the obelisks.

This is actually one of the most underappreciated facts in Ethiopian history. The Aksumite civilization, which built the obelisks, minted coins, and adopted Christianity, came after the D’amat Kingdom, which built Yeha. Aksum is what most people think is the first chapter of our history. Yeha is where the table of contents starts.

It was originally constructed as a temple dedicated to “Almaqah”, a Sabaean deity long associated with the moon, so it also holds the record for the oldest temple or holy site in Ethiopia. Older than any church or mosque in the country.

What makes it remarkable is not just the age, but the method. Its walls rise some 14 meters high, and the entire structure was built without mortar. Its walls still stand tall, held together by nothing but precisely cut stone and the stubbornness of good engineering.

The temple’s architects used only precisely cut stone blocks, some weighing several tons, which were carefully fitted together, a technique known as dry-stone construction. No glue. No cement. Just geometry and patience, and apparently both in abundance in 700 BC.

Verdict for Oldest building - Temple of Yeha, Tigray, approximately 700 BC.

The Oldest Living Plant - The Trees That Outlived Empires

Let’s get one thing straight first. If you search online for the oldest tree in Ethiopia, you will likely land on Suba Forest, near Addis Ababa. It is a beautiful forest, an important botanical bank, and worth visiting (they won’t show you the oldest tree in the forest to protect the tree), but the place is heaven, and it’s only like 50 minutes drive west of Addis. Suba’s claim to fame is that it is the oldest protected forest in Africa and Ethiopia, after Emperor Zera Yacob ordered trees planted there sometime between 1434 and 1468 to restore a degraded landscape. That makes it the oldest conservation project in Africa. The trees themselves, however, are at most 560 years old. Very old but not old enough, since we are searching for the oldest records.

For the oldest individual tree, you need to go somewhere far less convenient.

In southern Wello, about 30 kilometers west of a small town called Gerba, there is a 53-hectare pocket of forest called Anabe, one of the last surviving Podocarpus (ዝግባ) forests in Ethiopia. Getting there means driving to the nearest market town and then walking for about three hours. In the middle of that forest stands a tree called Awliyaw (አውልያው). The name comes from Arabic, meaning “trusted one,” the same word used for Islamic elders and scholars. It is a name the tree has earned.

Awliyaw’s trunk measures 12.7 metres in circumference. You would need several adults holding hands to encircle it. Local legend says it existed before all the other trees, that it gave rise to the forest around it, and that a man who once tried to climb it to steal honey from a beehive died three days later. Whether or not you believe the legend, it has served a practical purpose: nobody has touched this tree. In a country that lost the vast majority of its indigenous forests to farming and logging, Awliyaw survived because people were afraid of it. Conservation through reputation.

So how old is it?

Nobody knows precisely, and it is worth being honest about that. Here are the two data points we actually have.

Richard Pankhurst, a historian, lifelong Ethiopia scholar, and one of the few outsiders who truly knew this country as it deserved to be known, visited Awliyaw around 1999. He wrapped a tape measure around its trunk, recorded the 12.7-metre girth, and estimated the age at around 700 years. This was an educated guess based on size, not a lab result. Pankhurst was rigorous enough to know the difference, and honest enough not to overclaim.

The closest scientific confirmation comes from another forest. In 2012, a research team from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg studied Podocarpus falcatus trees in Munessa-Shashamene forest, 240 kilometres south of Addis Ababa on the eastern escarpment of the Rift Valley. Using radiocarbon dating on tree cross-sections, they confirmed that Podocarpus falcatus trees in the area lived beyond 500 years. They were not studying Awliyaw and never visited Wello, but their findings confirm that the biology is consistent with Pankhurst’s estimate that this species, in Ethiopian climatic conditions, does reach that age.

Nobody has directly dated the living Awliyaw tree itself. Given its sacred status, locals believe misfortune follows anyone who disrespects it. No researcher has drilled into it for a core sample, and likely never will. So 700 years remains the best available figure: relatively consistent with the science, supported by an extraordinary trunk, but unconfirmed by a laboratory for this specific tree.

Seven hundred years puts its germination around 1325. The Zagwe dynasty had already fallen, the Solomonic line had been restored for half a century, and Amda Seyon I sat on the throne. And Awiliyaw is still standing, in a 53-hectare pocket of forest in Wello, calmly indifferent to all of it.

There is also a tree in Eastern Oromia (Ittu Hobolo), claimed to have lived for 1000 years. I found it on a Facebook post, but couldn’t find any scientific test or substantial story on it. Another old tree in Gondor also pops up. There seem to be many old and grand trees spread across the county. A scientific expedition to find the oldest plant in Ethiopia is going to be a fascinating adventure to plan. Sign me up if you are thinking of preparing an expedition.

I couldnt even find a photo of አውሊያው and it would be so cool if you can go and be the first person to photograph it.

Verdict for the oldest living tree - Awliyaw, Anabe Forest, South Wello, approximately 700 years old.

The Oldest Living Plant Lineage — The Trees the Church Kept Alive

Awliyaw is as old as an individual. But, Juniperus procera (ጽድ), the African pencil cedar that belongs to the family Cupressaceae, fossils date to approximately 190 million years ago, placing the family squarely in the Jurassic period, when the supercontinent of Pangea was still in the early stages of tearing itself apart. The plant’s family architecture has barely shifted since: the same scale-like needles, the same small berry-like cones, the same unhurried growth.

It commonly grows to 30 or 40 meters across the Ethiopian highlands, a narrow, pointed silhouette that looks like someone drove a spear into a hillside and it simply decided to grow straight. What makes this story distinctly Ethiopian is how the trees survived.

The tree was first formally described by science in 1847 from specimens collected at an Ethiopian church, which, as origin stories go, is fitting. Because it is in Ethiopia’s churches that the survival story of this tree truly lives. Today, more than 80 percent of the country’s original highland forest cover is gone, cleared over centuries of agricultural expansion. And yet, scattered across the northern and central highlands, around 35,000 pockets of ancient forest survive intact, visible from the air as small, impossibly green islands surrounded by tilled farmland. They survive because they wrap around Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo churches. Church leaders have held for over 1,500 years that a church must be surrounded by forest, a living echo of the Garden of Eden, and those sacred boundaries have been honored ever since.

Juniperus procera is the signature tree of the Ethiopian Highlands. Ethiopian Orthodox tradition has specifically chosen to preserve it around the churches, which, whether or not you hold that belief, has given the ጽድ a status that no axe was ever going to challenge.

Awliyaw survived because people feared it out of spiritual heaviness. The ጽድ also survived because people protect them out of spiritual heaviness.

Verdict: African juniper (Juniperus procera, ጽድ), Ethiopian highlands church forests, family lineage ~190 million years old.

Going Further Back: The Oldest Plant Fossil

If a 700-year-old tree feels old, the hills of northwest Ethiopia would like to have a word.

Near a small town called Chilga (ጭልጋ), in the North Gondar Zone, about 120 kilometers west of Gondar city, a river called the Guang has been quietly cutting through ancient rock for millennia. What it has exposed in its banks is one of the most remarkable plant fossil sites in Africa. Sedimentary layers preserving the remains of a tropical rainforest that existed 27 to 28 million years ago.

The serious scientific work began in December 2006, when a team led by paleobotanist Bonnie Jacobs and sedimentologist Neil Tabor of Southern Methodist University arrived and collected over 600 plant fossils in a single field season. They returned the following year and kept collecting. All told, the team documented over 1,500 plant specimens from these layers. Palm leaves, seeds, fruits, and various flowers are all preserved in the riverbank, visible to anyone who walks along the water. No excavation required. Erosion has been doing that work for millions of years.

These fossils represent a lush lowland forest that existed long before the Ethiopian Highlands had risen to their current height, before the Red Sea had fully opened, and before Africa had reconnected with Europe and Asia. Among the most significant finds are fossilized pollen and leaf fragments of Sclerosperma, a now extinct African palm genus whose diversification, the Chilga evidence suggests, was already well underway 28 million years ago, at a time when palms were far more widespread across Africa than they are today.

The specific Sclerosperma species found at Chilga is extinct, and it no longer grows anywhere on Earth. But the genus itself survived, retreated over four thousand kilometers westward, and now clings to swampy forests in Gabon, Nigeria, and Congo. The riverbank at Chilga is the only place on the planet where you can see evidence that these palms ever called Ethiopia home.

The fossils collected in December 2006 and 2007 were taken to SMU’s (Southern Methodist University ) Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences in Dallas for study, on loan. The keyword is loan. The leaf fossils that Jacobs, Currano, and Pan catalogued are to be permanently housed in a new building at the National Museum of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa. Yet, they are not.

You can go to the Chilga Valley and see other fossilized plant remains. The fossils at Chilga are not buried in a single pocket that was emptied by researchers. They are embedded in continuous sedimentary layers exposed along the riverbank over a wide area. Erosion keeps exposing new material every rainy season. The researchers excavated into the hillside to find better-preserved specimens; they did not strip the riverbank clean.

Many of the fossils discovered at Chilga are so finely preserved that they can be studied under a microscope as easily as if they were living plants. Surface specimens visible to a casual visitor will be more weathered than those in the scientific catalog, but they will be there, and more to be discovered and studied.

If you live nearby or travel there by any chance, please bring me a fossilized palm leaf. I want to frame it. How cool is it to have a 28-million-year-old leaf in your house?

Oldest plant fossils you can visit - Chilga fossil beds, Guang River, North Gondar, 27 to 28 million years old.

The Oldest Animal Lineage – It’s a Fish!

Here is where we cross from centuries into hundreds of millions of years, and where the story gets genuinely strange.

In the lakes and rivers of Ethiopia, like Lake Tana, the Omo River, and various wetlands in the west, lives a creature so ancient that describing it as “old” feels like an understatement of geological proportions. Meet Protopterus aethiopicus: the Ethiopian lungfish. I couldn’t find the exact local name, but it’s something that looks similar to Catfish, so from what I found online its called አምባዛ, the same name as a Catfish. Please, if you know the fish, let me know the local name.

During the early Devonian period, approximately 400 million years ago, lungfish appeared in the fossil record. They are an ancient group of fish and, along with two extant species of coelacanth, are the only surviving lobe-finned fishes. Lobe-finned fish are the branch of aquatic life that eventually crawled onto land and became everything from frogs to dinosaurs, and to YOU. The lungfish stayed in the water but kept the lungs. A hedge, evolutionarily speaking, that has paid off handsomely for 400 million years.

Of the African lungfishes, the yellow marbled Ethiopian species, Protopterus aethiopicus, is the largest, growing to a length of 2 meters. It breathes air. It can “walk” along the bottom using its lobed fins. And in one of nature’s most extraordinary tricks, it can survive prolonged droughts by burrowing into mud and entering a state of suspended animation. Scientists have tested African lungfish estivation in the lab and found they can be revived even after seven years of dormancy.

Seven years! Asleep in mud. Waiting for the rains. This is an animal whose entire survival strategy is: I’ll outlast you. And it has.

For 400 million years, while trilobites went extinct, while dinosaurs rose and fell, while continents rearranged themselves, while our own ancestors were still figuring out upright walking, the Ethiopian lungfish kept doing exactly what it does now. It never changed. It is a living dispatch from a world so ancient it is almost unimaginable.

Fun fact: Because of their old age, at an estimated 133 billion base pairs, it has the largest known genome of any animal and one of the largest of any organism, along with the flowering plant Paris japonica, the fern Tmesipteris oblanceolata, and the protist Polychaos dubium at 150 billion, 160 billion, and 670 billion, respectively.

You can see Ethiopian lungfish in Lake Tana and along the Omo River. Fishermen occasionally catch them. They are reportedly not great for human consumption, which may itself be a survival mechanism.

Oldest animal lineage: Ethiopian lungfish (Protopterus aethiopicus), found in Ethiopian lakes and rivers, lineage dating back ~400 million years.

The Oldest Reptile Lineage - The One That Watched the Asteroid Hit

Ethiopia’s rivers have another ancient resident, and unlike the lungfish, it did not survive by going dormant and hiding in mud. The Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus) chose the opposite strategy: be large enough, armored enough, and terrifying enough that nothing on Earth would want to try its luck. If all options bear no fruit, cry as a survival mechanism. *wink

Crocodilians reached essentially their current body plan roughly 83 million years ago, in the Late Cretaceous. The flat skull, armored back, explosive ambush, and they have not been persuaded to revise a single design choice since. They watched the asteroid hit. They watched the non-avian dinosaurs vanish. They watched the mammals diversify, the primates descend from the trees, and eventually, after a very long wait, watched one particular species of upright ape start naming the rivers they had been roaming in for 80 million years.

The crocodile updated nothing. In Ethiopia, Nile crocodiles are found in Lake Chamo near Arba Minch, along the Omo River, and in the Blue Nile gorge, and the connection runs deeper than geography. The species is listed in scientific literature under the informal name “the Ethiopian crocodile.” Not the Egyptian. Not the African. Ethiopian, an acknowledgment, perhaps, of where its most spectacular specimens live.

Arba Minch’s crocodile ranch museum holds what a systematic search by crocodile specialists found to be the largest verifiable Nile crocodile skulls on record, sourced from nearby Lake Chamo, from animals estimated at over five meters long.

Eighty-three million years of refinement, and the result is a creature that looks like a rough draft from the Jurassic Period and hunts like a recently released predator.

Verdict: Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus), Lake Chamo, Omo River & Blue Nile, lineage ~83 million years old in modern form.

The Oldest Primate Lineage - The Last of Its Kind

Among Ethiopia’s living animals, one stands apart not just for its endemic status, but for the poignancy of its evolutionary position. The Gelada (ጭላዳ ዝንጀሮ), scientifically Theropithecus gelada, is the only living member of the genus Theropithecus, a name derived from Greek meaning “beast-ape.”

The gelada is the sole remnant of an old grass-grazing monkey lineage dating back to 4.2 million years ago. Unlike savanna baboons, geladas live on plateau meadows and pick grasses in the Simien Mountains and close to Debre Libanos with delicate fingers. Long ago, they and other species from their genus once roamed widely throughout Africa. Now these rarified heights are the last place in the world where you can find this extraordinary creature.

This is the evolutionary equivalent of being the last speaker of a language. Every other member of the Theropithecus genus, there were several, spread across much of Africa, is extinct. The gelada hung on in the Ethiopian highlands, isolated by altitude and terrain, and in doing so preserved a lineage that would otherwise be known only from fossils.

Geladas are the world’s only primate specialized for grazing on grass, a true “grass-eating monkey” which is an ecological niche no other primate on Earth occupies. Watching a herd of several hundred geladas moving across the Simien plateau at dawn, their rust-red chest patches catching the morning light, their complex vocalizations filling the thin highland air, you are watching something genuinely irreplaceable. There is no backup copy of this animal anywhere else on Earth.

The best place to encounter them is the Simien Mountains National Park, where troops of several hundred individuals are regularly encountered along the main trekking routes, apparently unbothered by cameras or the stares of altitude-struck hikers.

So now you understand, when you see that famous footage of the Geladas minding their business, acting nonchalant, and grooming each other on the grass. It is because they have seen it all and are not impressed or excitided almost by anything.

Oldest surviving primate lineage (and the most irreplaceable): Gelada monkey, Simien Mountains, a sole survivor of a genus that once spanned Africa.

The Oldest Human Ancestors

Now we arrive at the category Ethiopia is most famous for, and where the story gets to be properly humbling.

Most Ethiopians know Lucy. Australopithecus afarensis, discovered in 1974 near Hadar in the Afar region, 3.2 million-year-old fossil. She is the mascot of human origins, the fossil that proved upright walking was an ancient business. She is magnificent. She is also, by the standards of Ethiopian paleontology, practically a newcomer.

Ardi came first, but discovered later. Ardipithecus ramidus, nicknamed Ardi, is a hominid species that lived 4.4 million years ago. That makes Ardi more than a million years older than the celebrated Lucy. The Ardipithecus ramidus fossils were discovered in the Afar desert at a site called Aramis in the Middle Awash region, just 75km from where Lucy’s species was found in 1974. She walked upright, lived in woodland, and, this was the genuinely surprising part, did not look like a chimpanzee. This was not an ordinary fossil; it was not a chimp and not a homo sapience either. It shows us what we used to be during the evolutionary transition.

But even Ardi is not the oldest.

Ardipithecus kadabba is an early hominin species recovered from sediments in the same Middle Awash Valley and dated to between 5.2 and 5.8 million years ago. It was discovered by our own paleoanthropologist, Yohannes Haile-Selassie, in 1997 and formally named Ardipithecus kadabba in 2004 as a species. The word kadabba means “oldest ancestor” in the Afar language. A fitting name, because at nearly 6 million years old, this hominin lived close to the very moment when the human and chimpanzee lineages diverged. It is, for now, the oldest known member of our extended family tree found in Ethiopia, and one of the oldest anywhere on Earth.

All three, kadabba, Ardi, and Lucy, were found in the Middle Awash region and the broader Afar Depression, an area so dense with fossil treasure that it has been called, without exaggeration, the cradle of human evolution. The National Museum of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa holds Lucy’s remains (a cast is on permanent display; the original bones are kept separately for conservation).

The landscapes of Hadar and Aramis are open for a visit or scientific expeditions, though they require planning. The logistics of the Afar require guides and four-wheel-drive vehicles, but for anyone serious about human origins, standing in those bone-dry badlands where our most ancient relatives once walked is worth every kilometer of rough road and heat.

Verdict for the oldest human ancestor found in Ethiopia: Ardipithecus kadabba, Middle Awash, Afar, 5.8 to 5.2 million years ago.

The Oldest Highland

Ethiopia’s mountains are not what most people imagine when they think of African geography. They are not gentle rolling hills. They are dramatic, vertiginous, almost theatrical, with sheer escarpments dropping 1,500 meters in the space of a short walk, pinnacles rising from plateau floors like broken teeth. This is the Simien Mountains, and the geology behind their formation is as dramatic as the landscape itself.

The Simien Mountains had their beginnings 75 million years ago during the Cretaceous period. As the continents very slowly shifted, magma built up beneath a dome of rocks, forcing it upwards into what is now the Ethiopian Highlands. Then, between 40 and 25 million years ago, lava outpourings during the Oligocene period covered the entire Simien range with basaltic rock 3,000 to 3,500 meters thick. What you see today, the pinnacles, the cliffs, the sweeping plateaus, are what remains after tens of millions of years of erosion, carving away everything softer.

To put this in context: the Simien Mountains were already ancient before the Great Rift Valley existed. They predate the rifting process that would eventually create the Afar Depression, the lakes of the rift, and the very landscape where Lucy and her relatives would walk millions of years later. In a sense, the stage was set long before the actors arrived.

Most of the Ethiopian highlands found around Abyssinia Masif (which includes the Semien Mountains and Ras Dashen peak) were formed by volcanic flood basalts dating from the Paleogene period, roughly 30 million years ago, which was built on top of the built-up magma during the Cretaceous period.

Visiting the Simiens means trekking through what is essentially the eroded core of a 30-million-year-old supervolcano. Knowing this might not make the views better, because they are already extraordinary and breathtaking, but it adds a dimension that changes how you look at the rock underfoot and time itself.

Verdict for the oldest Mountain: Simien Mountains, Amhara Region, roots dating to 75 million years ago, and main volcanic formation 25–40 million years ago.

The Oldest Piece of Ground You Can Stand On - The Geological Winner

This is where we leave biology behind and enter deep time proper.

Most of Ethiopia’s dramatic scenery, like the rift valleys, the volcanic highlands, and the Danakil Depression, is geologically young. The rift system began opening only about 30 million years ago. The volcanoes are younger still. Erta Ale, in the Danakil, has the world’s longest-existing continuously active lava lake, present since at least 1906, which makes it ancient by human standards and an infant by geological ones.

But beneath all of this, beneath the lava fields and the rift sediments and the Mesozoic limestones, lies something far older. In the peripheral regions of Ethiopia, particularly in the west and southwest, where the volcanic cover thins, something extraordinary is exposed: the Precambrian Basement.

Rocks formed by the East African Orogeny, 880 to 550 million years ago, make up the oldest geological units in Ethiopia. This mountain-building event and the collision of ancient continental fragments that closed the Mozambique Ocean and helped assemble the supercontinent Gondwana left behind a foundation of metamorphic and igneous rock that underlies virtually all of Ethiopia. The Precambrian era produced the basement rocks that are the oldest in the nation, ranging in age from 600 to 3,000 million years.

Read that number again. Three billion years. For comparison, complex multicellular life only appeared on Earth about 600 million years ago. The oldest basement rocks of western Ethiopia were already ancient when the first animals with eyes evolved.

Somehow, still after all this rabbit hole of finding the oldest thing in Ethiopia, it fascinates me that I learned the land where we call Ethiopia today was being shaped side by side when life itself was starting. Truly, the land of origins.

These rocks, gneisses, schists, quartzites, and ancient granites are exposed in western Ethiopia, particularly in the Benishangul-Gumuz and Wollega areas, where they surface in the rugged terrain between the Abbay (Blue Nile) gorge system and the Sudanese border. The Precambrian rocks of Ethiopia are exposed in the peripheral regions of the country, including the north, west, southwest, south, and east, found in areas less affected by Cenozoic volcanism and rifting, where the Phanerozoic cover rocks have eroded.

This is Ethiopia’s least-visited geological treasure, and perhaps its most significant. The highlands of Benishangul-Gumuz and the Wollega area are not on the standard tourist circuit. They should be. A geologist walking those river valleys is walking on rocks that existed before the dinosaurs, before fish colonized land, before multicellular life as we know it had gotten particularly creative.

The region is currently better known for gold mining; the ancient rocks are rich in heavy minerals, but its deep-time credentials are unmatched anywhere in the country.

Scientific geochronological studies have dated rocks at the following specific locations:

The winner is Kemashi, Benishangul-Gumuz, at 856 million years. It holds the oldest specifically dated and named rock exposure in Ethiopia. These are not estimates; they were dated using U-Pb zircon geochronology, the gold standard of rock dating.

Interestingly, erosion of this ancient mountain chain may have played a role in triggering the Cambrian explosion. The sudden burst of animal diversification roughly 540 million years ago that produced virtually every major animal and plant alive today. Ethiopian rocks, in other words, may have helped kick-start the Age of Animals. That is a tourism selling point that has barely been touched.

The Afar Depression, meanwhile, deserves a special mention for a different kind of geological superlative. The Danakil Depression sits at the triple junction between three tectonic plates. It is one of the few places on Earth where continental rifting, which is the process of oceans being born, is happening in real time, on dry land, where you can walk up to the edge and watch it. The Danakil is essentially a proto-ocean in its infancy; in tens of millions of years, if the rifting continues, the Horn of Africa will be an island and the Danakil will be a seabed. You can visit that future ocean floor today. It just happens to be 50°C and sits 116 meters below sea level.

Verdict for the oldest geological formation: Western Ethiopia (Benishangul-Gumuz & Wollega), a Precambrian basement rocks up to ~880 million years old, with some formations potentially older.

A Note on What We Don’t Know

Any honest inventory of the oldest things in Ethiopia has to acknowledge a significant limitation: we have found only what we have looked for.

Ethiopia’s fossil record, rich as it is, has been systematically explored mainly in the Afar region. Other parts of the country, like the deep southwest, the Gambela lowlands, and the areas west of the rift valley, have barely been surveyed paleontologically. There are almost certainly older hominin remains waiting in the sediments of unexplored valleys. The geological mapping of the basement rocks is incomplete; the 3-billion-year figure is a hint, not a definitive finding. The tree records are almost certainly incomplete. How many ancient Podocarpus or Juniperus trees grow undocumented in sacred groves, protected only by local tradition?

Ethiopia’s biodiversity database is similarly still being written. Within its borders are known to exist approximately 6,000 species of plants, 863 species of birds, 271 species of mammals, and 174 species of fish. New species, not just new records, but genuinely new species are still being discovered in the valleys, highlands, and forests.

The oldest things we don’t yet know about are, by definition, still out there.

Time Is the Country

There is something particular about Ethiopia’s relationship with deep time that other “ancient” countries don’t quite have. Egypt has its monuments, extraordinary, yes, but 5,000 years is a footnote in the timescales we are dealing with here. Greece has its philosophy. But, Ethiopia has the actual physical records, written in rock and bone and living tissue, of life’s long apprenticeship on this planet we call home.

The Awliyaw tree in Anabe forest is 700 years old and counting. The Simien Mountains were shaped by a volcano that erupted 30 million years ago. The Ethiopian lungfish in Lake Tana carries a lineage 400 million years deep. The fossils of Middle Awash Valley record a moment 5.8 million years ago when something was becoming us, or rather, when we were becoming something. And beneath all of it, in the ancient basement rocks of the western highlands, lie the signatures of continental drift and collisions that happened when complex life was just getting started.

Land of Origin is how Ethiopia markets itself. It is not wrong. But it undersells the point. Ethiopia is not just the origin of Homo sapiens. It is a country where you can stand on ground three billion years old, look out at mountains thirty million years old, watch a primate lineage that is the last of its kind, and drive home past a 2,700-year-old temple built without mortar, all in the same week.

That is not a tourism pitch. That is just the geology.

So here is the final scorecard of Ethiopia’s deep-time champions.

The winner? The rocks of western Ethiopia are silent, unremarkable to look at, and older than almost anything alive on this planet.

Sources
1. https://allafrica.com/stories/200002180067.html

2. https://www.conifers.org/refs/pankhurst00.htm

3. https://www.facebook.com/groups/672818376463049/posts/1173320123079536/

4. https://www.monumentaltrees.com/en/eth/amhara/kombolchatown/30387_anabeforest/56155/

5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bati_(woreda)

6. https://www.facebook.com/Oromology/posts/this-ancient-tree-situated-in-ituu-east-oromia-boasts-an-impressive-age-of-over-/963486385807006/

7. https://emergencemagazine.org/feature/the-church-forests-of-ethiopia/

8. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Fossils-representing-paenungulate-taxa-from-Chilgaa-Specimen-CH26-10-Arsinoitherium_fig1_8976676

9. https://www.smu.edu/news/research/monodominant-rainforest

10. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0279491

11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_forests_of_Ethiopia

12. https://www.britannica.com/animal/lungfish

13. https://www.britannica.com/animal/lungfish/Adaptations-for-breathing

14. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbled_lungfish

15. https://www.britannica.com/animal/African-lungfish

16. https://www.mindat.org/paleo_collection.php?col=169320

17. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1642359310701701

18. https://newsarchive.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/03/04_Akadab.shtml

19. https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-021-00149-z

20. https://portergeo.com.au/database/mineinfo.php?mineid=mn1643

If you have ever stared at a map of Ethiopia long enough, and let’s be honest, if you’re reading this, you definitely have, you probably noticed something peculiar: Ethiopia’s borders are, let’s say, a bit weird. Don’t you get curious about how we are shaped like this? The acute angle extruding into Somalia, how do we come to terms with that inorganic geometry?

There is also that jagged zigzag along the northern frontier that looks like someone drew it during an earthquake. There is a thumb protruding westward into Sudan that looks pushes the border outward. There is a suspiciously straight line cutting through the desert on our southeast side. And then there’s the uncomfortable fact that until 1993, Ethiopia had a coastline and now it doesn’t.

Borders are not just random lines on a map. Every angle, every bulge, every inexplicably straight edge is a frozen moment in history, and they affect ordinary life. Every decision on the map has to be translated to ground coordinates with diplomacy, compromise, and sometimes bloodshed, and a never-ending stalemate and settlement.

Our border is shaped by a treaty signed under duress, a battle won or lost, territory exchanging hands, temporary settlements with long-term costs, a colonial power drawing boundaries across lands they had never visited, and a king expanding his empire one conquest at a time while Europe scrambled for Africa.

Ethiopia shares around 6,000 kilometers of land borders with six countries: Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, *Somaliland, Kenya, South Sudan, and Sudan. At one point, we used to share a land border with Uganda, a sea with Yemen, and Saudi Arabia.

Ethiopia’s Geographic Foundation

Before we trace where Ethiopia ends, we must understand what Ethiopia is.

Ethiopia is a geographic anomaly, a highland fortress surrounded on nearly all sides by descent. The Ethiopian Highlands (often called the “Roof of Africa”) form a massive elevated plateau varying between 2,000 and 3,000 meters above sea level, with over twenty-five peaks exceeding 4,000 meters. Ras Dashen, at 4,550 meters, is the tenth-highest mountain in Africa.

From this central massif, the land drops precipitously in all directions, westward to the grasslands of Sudan, north-eastward to the Afar Depression (one of the lowest and hottest places on Earth), southward through the Great Rift Valley (which literally splits the plateau in two diagonally), and northward toward the Red Sea coast that Ethiopia no longer possesses.

This topography isn’t just scenery; it’s also a destiny that shapes our outlook as a nation. The highlands provided natural fortification against invaders (and colonizers). The surrounding lowlands became fertile land for agriculture, buffer zones, conquest territories, and eventually, the contested borderlands we are examining today.

How We Got Here: Three Centuries Of Border Evolution

To understand Ethiopia’s current shape, we must compare its evolution with that of its neighbors, mainly through the continuous Abyssinian empire and statecraft, and the tale of divergent destinies during the Scramble for Africa.

The Pre-Colonial Era (Before 1850s)

Before European powers arrived with their metal and conferences, Ethiopian borders were not lines; they were zones of influence. The Abyssinian Empire’s influence waxed and waned like the seasonal rains. At times, Emperor Lebna Dengel (16th century) controlled territory extending to the Red Sea. At other times, the empire contracted to the highland core. Borders were defined by tribute payment, religious allegiance, and military reach, not by coordinate geometry.

The Abyssinian empire was the strongest and continuous administrative entity for millennia in the region, and this makes it a center of gravity that pulls and locks the surrounding smaller kingdoms, tribal chiefs, and pastoralist communities as satellites. This makes the periphery beyond the central highlands part of the greater empire through tax collection, social cohesion, and mutual defence.

Our borders evolved and shape-shifted through time to have the current shape. Here are some maps to show how Ethiopian borders evolved.

The Menelik Revolution (1889-1913)

Everything changed with Emperor Menelik II.

While other African leaders were being conquered, colonized, or partitioned by the Scramble for Africa, Menelik did something extraordinary: he carved a giant empire for himself rather than becoming a vicitim of the colonizers’ grand plan for Africa. When I say giant, I mean that the Ethiopian boundary we have today, which was primarily shaped by Menelik, has a total area of approximately 1,104,300 square kilometers, making it the 10th largest country in Africa and the 26th largest in the world. He really built a geographically complex and big country.

In April 1891, Menelik sent a circular letter to all European heads of state, asserting the historical boundaries of Ethiopia, which include the larger pherpheris and his intention to make sure the borders are respected in light of European colonial expansions.

He then spent two decades conducting military campaigns known as “ሀገር ማቅናት” (positioning the land), conquering territories to the south, east, and west through diplomacy and force. By his death in 1913, the Ethiopian empire had roughly doubled in size, and imperial power was properly centralized.

However, the broader horn of Africa region has the opposite experience; while Ethiopia was expanding, Somalia was being carved up by Britain, Italy, and France. Sudan was being reconquered by the British after the Mahdist State collapsed. Eritrea had become an Italian colony after Wuchale. Kenya was becoming British East Africa. Only Ethiopia, through Menelik’s combination of diplomacy, brutal warfare tactics, and canny negotiations, maintained sovereignty while actually growing its empire.

The Colonial Treaty Era (1889-1908)

Here’s where our modern borders crystallized, not just through Ethiopian initiative alone, but through a series of treaties with European powers that were better positioned to gain maximum leverage against Ethiopia. As much as we kept our sovereignty and tried to shape our own destiny, borders are not something you draw by yourself; it’s usually a settlement between bordering powers. In our case:

The 20th Century Rollercoaster

• 1935-1941: Italian occupation temporarily erased Ethiopia’s independence (and borders)

• 1952: Eritrea federated with Ethiopia (border becomes internal)

• 1962: Eritrea is annexed back (border disappears administratively)

• 1993: Eritrea is independent again (Ethiopia loses coastline again, 1,033 KM international border)

• 1998-2000: Devastating border war with Eritrea (70,000-100,000 dead), which reshaped our northern border again

• 2018: Peace agreement with Eritrea; borders reopened but remained international

Ethiopia’s borders are unique because they represent the only significant African territorial expansion by an indigenous empire during the colonial era, subsequently modified by European treaty-making, then altered again by post-colonial secession. It’s a sweet and bitter layer, each era written over but never completely erasing the previous course.

Border By Border: The Complete Anatomy of our Border Geography

Now, let’s examine each frontier individually and the history, the treaties, the natural features, and the ongoing disputes.

The Eritrea Border (North): 1,033 Kilometers Of Unfinished Business

Character: Mixed natural (rivers, mountains) and political (colonial treaty) boundary
Status: Technically at peace (since 2018); practically tense and demarcation incomplete.

The border follows three distinct patterns depending on the sector:

1. Western Sector (Tekezé River): Natural riverine boundary defined by the 1902 tripartite treaty

2. Central Sector (Mereb River & Badme): Mix of rivers and straight lines; site of the 1998 war

3. Eastern Sector (Danakil/Afar depression): Follows watershed divides and colonial administrative lines

The current Eritrea border started with the Treaty of Wuchale (May 2, 1889) between Menelik II and Italy, a document that would inadvertently cause tens of thousands of deaths.

Creating the northern border: Three Treaties (1900-1908)

After Adwa, borders were negotiated through successive agreements:

Treaty of Addis Ababa, May 19, 1900: Bilateral Ethiopia-Italy agreement defining the central sector from the Tekezé confluence eastward. Used natural features where convenient.

Treaty of 1902 (May 15): Trilateral agreement between Ethiopia, Italy, and Britain – This addressed both the western Eritrea sector and the entire Sudan-Ethiopia frontier. Three crucial points defined the western Eritrea sector and sowed the seeds of the 1998‑2000 war:

1. The Setit‑Mareb pivot. The 1902 treaty superseded the ambiguous 1900 line by fixing the frontier westward from the Setit (Tekezé) River to the Mareb River, then northwards. It was the first time precise river junctions were named, yet the map attached was small‑scale and left the ground location vague.

2. The “colonial triangle” compromise. Britain, Italy, and Ethiopia agreed to modify both the Sudan‑Eritrea and Ethiopia‑Eritrea frontiers. Britain secured a corridor to the Sudanese border; Italy retained sovereignty over the Eritrean highlands; Ethiopia kept the Tigrayan hinterland. But the text neglected to specify who owned the dusty villages that sat between the named rivers — among them, Badme and Shiraro towns.

3. No Ethiopian surveyor present. Major Charles Gwynn, a British royal engineer, carried out the demarcation unilaterally in 1903, without Ethiopian representatives or Emperor Menelik’s authorization. He made “discretionary adjustments” that shifted the line eastward in several places, planting iron boundary pillars that Ethiopia never formally accepted.

Consequence: For a century, Ethiopia and Eritrea, and before that, Ethiopia and Italy operated on two different mental maps. When Eritrea became independent in 1993, both sides dusted off the 1902 text, only to discover they were reading the same words but seeing different lines. The result was the catastrophic Ethio-Eritrea War.

The Badme Disaster (1998-2000)

For decades, these treaty lines existed only on paper. Then came Badme, a small town of perhaps less than 5,000 people in the western sector.

In May 1998, Eritrean forces moved their troops and occupied Badme, claiming it per the colonial treaties. What followed was a trench-warfare horror reminiscent of World War I, complete with human wave attacks, artillery duels, and a staggering death toll.

Then came the 2002 Boundary Commission ruling, an international commission reviewed all colonial treaties, including those treaties” Ethiopia didn’t participate in, acknowledge, or accept, and ruled:

• Badme → Eritrea (Ethiopia initially refused to accept)

• Central sector towns (Zalambessa, etc.) → Split

• Western sectors → Mixed allocations

2018 Peace & Current Status: Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and President Isaias Afwerki signed a historic peace agreement in Asmara (the details of which are not yet public) in July 2018. They agreed:

• ✅ Borders reopened (two crossings operational)

• ✅ Diplomatic relations restored

• ✅ Flights resumed

• ⚠️ Badme physical transfer remains incomplete

• ⚠️ Border markers not fully placed

• ⚠️ Tensions resurfacing amid regional instability (2025-26)

The Eritrea border represents unresolved imperial grief; two nations that have the same origin and were one nation for centuries, fought a horrific war to separate, and now must learn to be neighbors. The lines on the map are clear; the emotional boundaries and political resolves are not.

The Djibouti Border (Northeast): 459 Kilometers Of Traded Coastline

Character: Mix of straight-line segments, drainage divides, and wadis (dry riverbeds)
Status: Stable; economically vital; historical trade corridor

The 1897 Bargain: Coastline for Recognition

Ethiopia’s border with Djibouti tells a story of calculated sacrifice.

Historical context:

• 1862: France acquires Obock harbor from the Afar chiefs

• 1884-1888: France expands inland, establishing French Somaliland

• 1897: Franco-Ethiopian Treaty marks out the border

What Menelik gave up: Direct access to the Bab el Mandeb strait (gateway to Red Sea/Indian Ocean trade).

What Menelik gained:

• French recognition of Ethiopian sovereignty (crucial after the Adwa victory and the pressure of the Scramble for Africa)

• Authorization for the Djibouti-Addis Ababa railway (completed 1917)

• Buffer against Italian expansion from Eritrea

The treaty specifics (from US State Department International Boundary Study No. 154):

“In 1897, the Franco-Ethiopian Treaty marked out the border... From the Somalia tripoint at Madaha Djalelo, it follows various straight-line segments, drainage divides, and wadies to Ras Doumeira on Bab el Mandeb.”
— US Dept. of State, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, 1976

The Modern Consequence: Landlocked Dependency

When Eritrea seceded in 1993, Ethiopia lost its coastline entirely. Suddenly, that 1897 decision looked very different.

Current reality:

• ~95% of Ethiopia’s international trade passes through Djibouti’s port

• The old French railway is now replaced by a Chinese-built standard-gauge line.

• Ethiopia is desperately seeking alternative ports (Berbera in Somaliland, Lamu in Kenya, Mombasa via road)

The Somalia/Somaliland Border (East/Southeast): 2,393 Kilometers Of The “Thumb”

Character: Long, arid, ethnically Somali on both sides, a mix of colonial treaty lines and colonial occupation
Status: Generally peaceful but politically sensitive, with occasional insurgent activity and identity tensions. New tensions are rising with the Somaliland independence movement and Ethiopia’s strategic access to the sea.

The Eastern Protrusion: Menelik’s Greatest Expansion

*Figure 5: The Somali Region (Ogaden)—that distinctive thumb-shaped protrusion containing mostly ethnic Somalis within Ethiopia’s borders. Source: Britannica*

That giant eastern bulge making Ethiopia look like it’s pointing at the Indian Ocean is now the Somali Region (historically the Ogaden), and it exists because Menelik II decided to outmaneuver the Scramble for Africa rather than be consumed by it.

How it happened:

Why does the “thumb” exist?

1. Strategic depth: Buffer zone against European coastal colonies

2. Trade routes: Control over caravan routes to Zeila, Berbera, and other ports

3. Pastureland: Valuable grazing lowlands for livestock

The colonial geometry: Britain wanted to keep Italian Somaliland afar, separated from the British Somaliland. Ethiopia filled the gap. The “thumb” is essentially the space left over after Europe carved up the Somali coast. For the Brits, Menelik’s control was a safe buffer; for Ethiopia, it gained a vast, bush-covered grassland and plateau spanning the Somaliland-Ethiopia border, commonly known as the Houd, and it was also an opportunity to widen the tax base.

The 1977-78 Ogaden War

The most serious challenge to this border came when Somalia, under Siad Barre, tried to “reunite” Somali peoples under one flag, including the Ogaden’s ethnic Somalis.

Ethiopia (with Soviet and Cuban support) decisively defeated Somalia. The border remained unchanged. Ethiopia kept its “thumb” and the resources above and below.

Current status:

• Relatively peaceful since the 1990s

• ONLF (Ogaden National Liberation Front) renounced armed struggle in 2018

• The Somali Region is now part of Ethiopia’s Federal System and thriving

• Reserves of Natural Gas confirmed, and development is ongoing

The Kenya Border (South): 861 Kilometers Of Lakes, Rivers, And Pastoral Land

Character: Mix of lakeshores, rivers, and desert, sparsely populated, culturally complex
Status: Generally peaceful, an important trade corridor, and a long history of shared culture of the Borena people and Southern Omo nationalities.

Lake Turkana: The Border That Moves

Lake Turkana is perhaps Ethiopia’s most fascinating transboundary feature, and the only lake that forms part of an international boundary on our entire map.

Profile:

• Size: ~6,405 km² (larger than Cyprus)

• Nickname: “Jade Sea” (striking green-blue color)

• UNESCO status: World Heritage Site (listed “in danger” since 2018)

• Hydrology: Receives 90% of inflow from Ethiopia’s Omo River

• Cross-border communities: Kenyan Turkana vs. Ethiopian Dassanech/Nyangatom/Mursi

At the Anglo-Ethiopian Treaty of 1907, the two sides agreed that the border would run east‑west from a point just north of the lake, the so‑called Maud Line (surveyed by Captain Philip Maud in 1902‑03). A 1970 Ethiopia‑Kenya treaty reaffirmed this alignment. Ethiopia kept the Omo River delta and the northernmost tip of the lake’s shoreline, while the vast body of water itself falls within Kenyan territory.

The Ilemi Triangle: Where Three Countries Meet

At the intersection of Ethiopia, Kenya, and South Sudan lies the Ilemi Triangle (~10,000-14,000 km²), one of Africa’s last “ungoverned” spaces.

• Red line = established by the joint Kenya-Sudan survey team in 1938 as a temporary measure. (also known as the Wakefield line)

• Blue line = established by Britain’s Foreign Office in 1944

• Sudanese Patrol Line = unilaterally established by Sudan in 1950.

• The thin yellow line is the country boundaries on the NASA whirlwind program

Ethiopia’s position: In the 1902, 1907, and 1972 treaties, Ethiopia agreed that the area belonged to Sudan, but Kenya also claims parts.

Result: nobody effectively controls it.

The Uganda connection: Before the 1902 treaty, Britain briefly administered the Ilemi region as a northern extension of the Uganda Protectorate. Early sketch maps consequently depicted a thin strip of British East Africa, in such a way that what would become Uganda was touching Ethiopian soil. That anomaly vanished when the 1902 agreement transferred the territory to Sudan’s sphere.

So yes, Ethiopia and Uganda briefly shared a de jure boundary, but it existed only in colonial cartography and was erased quickly.

Who lives there: Turkana (Kenya), Nyangatom/Dassanech (Ethiopia), Toposa (South Sudan), pastoralists who follow rain and grazing land, ignoring all three lines. Ilemi is a window into pre-colonial border Africa, where territory was zonal, not linear.

The South Sudan Border (Southwest): ~900 Kilometers Of Rivers And Swamps

This border was part of Sudan, and it mostly follows natural features, mainly the three main rivers shared between the two people (Ethiopia and Sudan, now South Sudan), and the colonial treaties that were signed on behalf of the old Sudan were mostly kept after South Sudan’s independence.

Character: Primarily riverine (Baro, Akobo, Pibor), tropical wetland, culturally diverse
Status: Generally stable, cross-border ethnic ties are strong and, relatively speaking, there were no border issues or questions, which makes it the most stable border we have.

The 1902 Legacy: Where Rivers Draw Lines

*Figure 8: Topographic map of the Ethiopia-South Sudan land boundary following the Baro and Akobo river systems through the Gambella region. Source: Sovereign Limits*

The Ethiopia-South Sudan border is defined almost entirely by river systems flowing into the White Nile:

• Baro River: Forms ~200 km of border through the Gambella Region

• Akobo River: Continues southward

• Pibor River: Southernmost section before meeting Kenya

All three are mentioned in the 1902 Anglo-Ethiopian Treaty:

“The frontier between the Sudan and Ethiopia shall start from Khor Um Hagar to Gallabat to the Blue Nile, Baro, Pibor, and Akobo rivers...”
— 1902 Treaty, Article II

The small western extrusion: The “thumb” pointing east into Somalia is famous; the Gambella extrusion pointing west into South Sudan is often overlooked. This protuberance exists because the 1902 treaty deliberately drew the border along the Baro, Pibor, and Akobo rivers, creating a south‑westward bulge that stretches 543 km into the Sudd wetlands. Britain wanted to grant Sudan a commercial station on the Baro River. Menelik agreed. Article IV of the 1902 treaty leases a 400‑hectare riverfront plot near Itang to the Anglo‑Egyptian Sudan. In exchange, Ethiopia retained the entire Gambella region and access to the White Nile basin. The extrusion is thus a trade corridor frozen into geography.

This is perhaps Ethiopia’s most culturally integrated border. The Anuak, Nuer, and Murle peoples live on both sides. During South Sudan’s civil wars (1983-2005, 2013-2020), hundreds of thousands of refugees crossed into Ethiopia’s Gambella Region, which shares ethnicity, language, and often family ties with South Sudan’s Jonglei and Upper Nile states.

Treaty after independence: When South Sudan became independent in July 2011, the 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement (which set the Sudan‑Ethiopia border) was automatically inherited as the de jure boundary. In September 2012, Ethiopia and South Sudan signed a Framework Agreement in Addis Ababa that affirmed the existing border, committed to joint demarcation, and established a bilateral border commission. That commission has met sporadically; physical demarcation remains incomplete, but no territory is actively disputed.

The Sudan Border (Northwest): 744 Kilometers Of Fertile Soil And Frozen Conflict

Character: Mix of rivers (Blue Nile, Setit/Tekezé), agricultural plains, and contested farmland with an active dispute (al-Fashaga), currently a militarized standoff and complicated by Sudan’s internal civil war.

How the border was lined: The Ethiopian-Sudanese frontier was born from the same 1902 Anglo‑Ethiopian Treaty. Article I traced the border from “Khor Um Hagar to Gallabat, to the Blue Nile, Baro, Pibor, and Akobo Rivers to Melile”. The treaty required a joint boundary commission, but Britain, as Sudan’s colonial power, sent Major Charles Gwynn to demarcate it alone in 1903. The Gwynn Line became the de facto border for more than a century. Ethiopia consistently rejected it because no Ethiopian official was present. Gwynn altered the treaty line south of Mount Dagleish, and the fertile al‑Fashaga farmland, which was cultivated by Ethiopian farmers for generations, was placed on the Sudanese side.

For decades, Addis Ababa and Khartoum managed the disagreement through the 1972 Exchange of Notes, agreeing to re‑demarcate once they had studied “the problem resulting from settlements and cultivation north of Mount Dagleish”. That study never concluded, but through mutual understanding, they both agreed to keep the status quo, to keep the farmers and their operation.

The al-Fashaga Dispute: When Sesame Seeds Become Strategic Assets

Starting from the late 80s, commercial farming of cash crops became lucrative. Al Fashaga becomes a sesame ground, a foreign currency-generating cash crop. This fact can’t just be ignored by the Sudanese side, and also it becomes apparent how important sesame export for Ethiopia is. On top of the already existing historical right of the Ethiopians that has been tilling the land for generations.

Al-Fashaga, a patch of exceptionally fertile farmland roughly the size of Malta that both countries claim, have bled for, and neither can afford to abandon, could be a clash point any day.

What is Al-Fashaga?

• Location: Where Ethiopia’s Amhara Region meets Sudan’s Gedaref State

• Area: ~250-300 km²

• Population: 50,000+ farmers, predominantly Ethiopians and very few Sudanese

• Crops: Sesame, sorghum, peanuts, cotton, all cash crops worth millions of USD annually

• Strategic value: Nicknamed “the breadbasket“ of the border region

Why this specific patch? Al-Fashaga sits in the rain-shadow of the Ethiopian Highlands, receiving just enough rainfall (~600-800mm/year) to support intensive rain-fed agriculture without irrigation, a rarity in this semi-arid zone.

The Root Cause: The Gwynn Line That Never Was

The dispute traces directly to the 1902 treaty and the 1903 Gwynn survey. Charles Gwynn led a team to establish the line, but Ethiopia never accepted it. For the next century, Ethiopian farmers cultivated al-Fashaga while Sudan protested diplomatically, with no leverage on the ground since the area has been de facto run by Ethiopian farmers for years. An uncomfortable status quo persisted for over 50 years. There were tentative meetings and a committee to resolve the border issue, but the status quo remained contested. Skirmishes between the Sudanese army and local militias occurred once in a while, but never boiled over into a “war” until now.

The 2020 Explosion

Then came the Tigray War (November 2020). Ethiopia’s central government was distracted, fighting an existential war in the north. And Sudan made an unneighborly and opportunistic move.

As Ethiopia descended into war in 2020, Sudan authorities swiftly expelled Ethiopian farmers and took control of the border region by force.

The status quo remained, Ethiopian farmers are pushed away, but remain, and Sudan’s own devastating civil war (SAF vs. RSF) and geopolitical alignments are complicating the border disputes.

Why do Ethiopia’s borders look the way they do?

After examining each frontier individually, patterns emerge:

Pattern 1: The Colonial Treaty Foundation (1889-1908)

Around ~70% of Ethiopia’s modern borders were defined during Menelik II’s reign through treaties and mutual understandings of the power dynamics with European powers. This is unique because most African borders were drawn solely by Europeans for Africans. Ethiopian borders were negotiated with Europeans by an African emperor who held actual formidable military power (proven at Adwa).

However, not all negotiations are settled, and not all borders are demarcated on the ground.

Pattern 2: Natural Features Where Convenient, Straight Lines Where Necessary

Ethiopia’s borders follow natural features (rivers, mountains, watersheds) approximately 50-60% of the time, higher than many African states. Where nature didn’t provide convenient dividers, straight lines were deployed; you can see this particularly on the border with Somalia, Kenya, and the west toward Sudan/South Sudan.

Why straight lines exist:

• Colonial surveyors, who sometimes are lazy with disregard for the people living in the area, the environment, or the historical context. or the environment

• Absence of obvious natural barriers in certain sectors

• Political expediency and maximizing colonial leverage (dividing spheres of influence cleanly among colonial powers)

Pattern 3: Ethnic Boundaries Systematically Ignored

Like virtually all African borders, Ethiopia’s cuts through ethnic homelands with remarkable indifference:

These divisions continue generating tension, identity politics, and occasional irredentism.

Pattern 4: Post-1993 Transformation

Eritrea’s secession fundamentally altered Ethiopia’s character, from a multi-ethnic empire with a coastline to a landlocked highland fortress dependent on Djibouti’s goodwill for its international trade. This wasn’t just a border change; it was a geopolitical and national interest crisis that continues shaping Ethiopian foreign policy (desperation for port access drives involvement in Somalia, Somaliland, and beyond).

Ethiopia’s borders are the cartographic scars of an empire that refused to be colonized. Every treaty line, every riverine bulge, every straight edge through the desert tells a story of how the Ethiopian empire operates, and trades, and Menelik’s ambition. At the same time, our borders are the result of European cunning and the painful post-colonial adjustments of our time.

We are the Water Tower, the Roof of Africa, and the center of gravity that spans from Sudan’s wetlands to the Red Sea coast, but gradually lost all coastal borders in exchange for sovereignty and keeping the empire intact.

These lines will continue to change, evolve, and shape our destiny. To understand Ethiopia, one must first understand where Ethiopia ends and, as we have seen, that has never been a simple question or has a perfect answer.

Source

1. https://onemorevoice.org/html/essays/addis_ababa_treaties.html#contexts

2. https://www.araweelonews.com/wararka-somaliland/somalia/letter-sent-by-emperor-menelek-to-the-heads-of-european-states/

3. https://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/dfat/treaties/1901/36.html

4. The map of Africa by treaty - https://www.loc.gov/item/99446110/

5. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/74584/74584-h/74584-h.htm

6. https://opil.ouplaw.com/display/10.1093/law-mpeipro/e3457.013.3457/law-mpeipro-e3457

7. https://reliefweb.int/report/ethiopia/border-commission-announces-ruling-badme-zalanbesa-alitena-irob-and-all-other

8. https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/9946282353506421

9. https://www.britannica.com/event/Treaty-of-Wichale

10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Ethiopian_Treaty_of_1897

11. https://djibouti.frontafrique.org/?page_id=1564

12. https://library.law.fsu.edu/Digital-Collections/LimitsinSeas/pdf/ibs154.pdf

13. https://reliefweb.int/report/eritrea/eritrea-ethiopia-boundary-commission-order-commission

14. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:EB1911_-_Volume_15.djvu/90

    
    

I spent the weekend in Kembata, with Hasset Hiking traveling in and around Durame, and visiting fascinating natural landscapes that humbled me to my core. The area is very rich with natural attractions, culture, and history. Even though it's less than 300 km and a six-hour drive, it's not a well-explored and visited area. So here is an introduction for the people who haven’t discovered the hidden gems of Kembata, and a rewind of unforgettable stories for people who already visited Kembata and its people.

I have traveled with Hasset Hiking before and I couldn’t recommend them enough! By now I am already a family and I made awesome friends on the way. A small group of adventurers with a passion for nature and wilderness.

We took off early Friday and headed to Durame, the capital of Kembata Zone. We had a light breakfast in the car and took a coffee break at Batu (Ziway). We arrived at Durame late afternoon and were welcomed by the Visit Kemebata team, a professional team with solid experience as a tour guide and deep knowledge of the area. Visit Kembata team is not a government-run tourism commission like Visit Oromia, but a group of self-motivated local young tour guides, and I was amazed at how professional and hospitable they were. They love their people, and their attractions and don’t hesitate to take you deep and proudly show you around.

We had lunch in Durame, it was a well-needed delicious treat after a long ride. Jan Café was a cozy and well-run restaurant. We enjoyed the small buffet, prepared just for us. The local delicacy cabbage and seasoned cottage were nourishing. After lunch, we had our coffee and got a chance to ride a motorbike around the city. Durame is a lovely town with welcoming people. Everybody was happy to show us around.

The Twin Ajora Falls

We passed Hadero town and turned to a dirt road to go to Ajora Falls. Picked up two policemen for scouting on the way. When we got to the Ajora Falls gorge, it was almost dark. We unloaded the tents and mattresses and walked down the hill to the campsite. The campsite was at the edge of the gorge with a mesmerizing view of the falls. The white noise coming from the Twin Falls is the perfect background music one needs when camping in nature. The moon also didn’t disappoint, she welcomed us with its full light making the night bright and blissful. I couldn’t ask for a better location and setup!

The Visit Kembata team set up the tent and quickly started the fire to cook us dinner. They made fried fresh goat meat. It was the most delicious የብረት ምጣድ ጥብስ (Tibs) I had while camping. There was also beer, that goes well with the meat and campfire under the bright moon overarching the waterfall.

By the time dinner was done, everybody was in the mood for a good time. Music started playing, some of us were dancing, some started group chat, some were gazing at the moon and meditating. The ambiance was so beautiful, the weather was perfect and the fire was the right temperature. We spend most of the night next to the fire, talking and playing various games.

The next morning we rise early to see the sun rising. Seeing the sun and the beautiful mountain was a humbling experience. The breath and surrounding green view are the grounding I needed. I sit down at the edge quietly and absorb the morning beams.

We packed our stuff, cleaned the area, and drove to a nearby farmer's house for breakfast. We are served a very palatable scrambled egg, Kinche, Siga Firfir, and Rice. I keep getting impressed by Visit Kembata’s hospitality and professionalism. The breakfast is beyond my expectations, and they make us feel like an honorable guest, not a random group of hikers. The first destination of Saturday was Sarobira field but we were already off schedule and to save time, we skipped Sarobira and directly headed to the natural bridge, locally known as ‘Yeigzer Dildy’.

Ye Egzer Dildiy (God’s Bridge) or ‘Buchachi Zaramma’ in Kembatissa Language

We traveled back a few Kilometres to Hadero town direction, and we stopped by the roadside and walked down the hill. We passed through beautiful Ginger farm fields to get to the mysterious waterfall. The waterfall is found in a shallow gorge and you can hear the roar from afar. Going down to the fall, you need to carefully ascend a scary and narrow path. But once you go down and see the roaring waterfall, it is worth it!

This is a peculiar waterfall and an enthralling geological formation. The fall has two steps, and the murky brown Sana River falls on eroded black igneous rock. Then the water passed underneath a natural bridge to finally join the Omo River, hence the name “Ye Egzer Dildiy” (Gods Bridge). It's truly a natural wonder!

Kembata is blessed with a lot of mountains, springs, and rivers, and due to the nature of the landscape, there are a lot of year-round rivers and waterfalls.

Doje Water Fall

The next destination was Doje Waterfall. Unlike Ye Egzer Dildiy, this was near the main road, we only walked like 20 minutes from the main road and got to the beautiful Doje Falls. Doje is found in an open field and getting there was not as hard as the previous fall. As soon as we got there, we took out our clothes and jumped into it. It's almost impossible to just stand there and see. It’s hard to resist the charm of Doje!

The water pulls you in. The water falls from around a 30m cliff onto a sandy mud. We took a shower, played around, and stayed there for like an hour more until everyone was exhausted. This was a much-needed refreshing moment after a hike to Ye Egzer Dildiy on a scorching sunny morning.

Later we drive to the nearby Shinshicho Town for lunch. They took us to a butcher and we feasted on meat like there was no tomorrow. Some of us had Kurt, some Shekla Tibs, and others ordered Kitfo. It was a heavy lunch, and we ate like a proper Saturday afternoon family lunch with drinks. Later we went to Yichalal Hotel for a coffee, it was a big, clean hotel with a beautiful garden. We all were surprised to see such a good hotel in a small town far away from the Addis. Yichalal Hotel looks like a resort in Bishoftu or Adama, with great service. We had our coffee and took some rest before heading to Hambericho. Meanwhile, they brought us big divider cords to charge our phones and power bank. As if the hotel was there to serve exactly people like us, we were treated perfectly to our needs.

Hambericho Mountain

We drove back to Durame, picked up food for dinner and some local ጠጅ and አረቄ and started ascending the mountain. The paved road was poorly maintained and it was difficult for our Toyota Coster bus. The 7 km paved road to the top of the mountain almost took us an hour. Fortunately, we arrived at the Hambericho campsite on time for the sunset. Hambericho was the main attraction we all are here for. We unloaded our stuff and quickly headed to the famous 777 stairs to the top of Hambericho Mountain.

The stair was built recently, four years ago to be exact and it has already become the bacon of Kembata Zone tourism. The stairs make it easier to hike the steep slope of Hambericho. The mountain is one of the highest peaks in southern Ethiopia with an elevation of 3058 meters above sea level. Hambericho has a lot of historical, cultural, and spiritual significance to the local Kembata community.

The stairs have number plates so that you know exactly where you are while climbing. The climb was a bit difficult, and not for amateur travelers. Hiking a 777 stair is similar to going up 35 floors on a high-rise building. The best part is, that you are not alone, it’s a nice group hike and there are benches on the side if you want to pause and recharge your energy with the breathtaking view.

We arrived on the top perfectly for the sunset. The top of Hambericho is a beautiful open and green plateau that looks like something out of a fantasy movie. And it's not even a small flat hilltop, it’s a huge open field that you can see to the edge of the horizon. For a second I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, it looked AI-generated, it looked like the field where Teletubbies lived, it brought childhood memories, and it also looked like a Windows wallpaper. My mind had to process all the emotions I was having walking on the top of the hill. Simply put, words can't explain how majestic it is.

We ran, lay on the grass, took a picture, and meditated silently watching the sun go down with a cold breath. The view makes you forget you climbed 35 stories. It was a refreshing and calming moment.

We descended back to our campsite and set up our tents and campfire. It was a misty and cold evening.  We had another የብረት ምጣድ ጥብስ (Tibs) for dinner, cooked right on the campfire in front of us.

Later while enjoying the ጠጅ and አረቄ, our guide told us the fascinating history of the mystical Hambericho Mountains and the relationship the people of Kemabata have with the number 7. The Kemebata people have a unique and almost spiritual relationship with the number 7, hence the stairs are made to be exactly 777. The number is called “Lamela” in the Kemebatise language.

It is believed that the first seven kinship groups of tribes of the Kembata lived on Mount Hambaricho from ancient times, and the Kembatas’ still refer to these groups as "Hambaricho Lamala", (the seven kin-groups of Kembata) as the original/founding groups of the Kembata People. There is a covenant stone on top of Hambericho, where the founding tribes of Kemabta established their Kingdom. Hambericho was also where the last king of Kembata Kingodom, Woma, used to live and the people used to celebrate annual festivities in the past. Hambericho is sometimes referred to as the cradle of the Kembata people.

In Kemebata society, when you get married or want to resolve a conflict, each party sends 7 elders. There are known to be 7 mountains, 7 rivers, and 7 springs in the area. For a new King to be sworn in, he has to fast 7 days, and there are many more examples of the number 7 used in the everyday life of the Kembata people.

We stayed late while listening to the amazing story about the mountain we just climbed and as the fire started dimming, we went back to our tents.

The next morning, we rise early at 5:30 AM to see the sunrise, to climb the mystical mountain again. Even though the stair is steep and most of us are physically exhausted, we couldn’t miss the sunrise on the top of the mountain. What we saw a day before was good enough to entice us to climb again. The sunset was humbling and you can imagine what the sunrise will look like. We ascend the stairs in the cold and clearing morning before the mist falls. The air was heavy, and breathing gets difficult as you go up. It’s the athlete's weather, where you can train your lungs at high altitudes for better endurance.  Most of us took our time and struggled to get to the top. But when we finally arrive, the breathtaking view takes us in awe again. We spent about an hour looking at the fast-moving cloud and the sun rising.

Gemasha Hot Springs

We packed our stuff and left Hambericho to visit Gemasha Hot Spring. While descending the mountain, our guide showed us a bee farmer's cooperative compound. We stopped to see the hives and test some honey on the way. Even though it was an early Sunday morning, the guard opened his door with a smile. Some of us want to buy the organic honey that is produced right at the back of the compound. While he packed the honey, he brought us a large sample with spoons for a test. The honey was sharp and tasted amazing with a flowerish smell. The compound was full of flowers and fruits, you can see why the honey smells and tastes like that. They also brought us some lemons and passionfruit, they picked it right before our eyes. The hospitality and generosity of Kemabata People is truly humbling and we all are immensely grateful!

We arrived at Gemasha Hot Springs, it’s a natural hot spring used for healing and recreational purposes for ages by the local people. But now a youth cooperative developed it into a well-established pool and bath service. We were surprised to see a well-maintained bath and three very clean swimming pools. We took a shower and jumped into the pool. The host spring was a much-needed heat for the sore muscles and knee after climbing the mountain twice. Even though it was  Sunday, it was not very crowded and the people swimming with us were very friendly, minding their own business and some were trying to teach us how to swim. I took some lessons on how to backflip. There were also professional lifeguards, which I didn't expect I would see some 300 km away from Addis in the small Shinshicho town. I was humbled again and again.

We left Gemasha and went back to the town for Breakfast/lunch. It was already 11:30 AM when we arrived at Yichalal Hotel. The same hotel where we had coffee yesterday. A full-course buffet was being set up when we arrived. It was a delicious lunch as usual! We had egg, pasta with veggies, chechebsa, and fetira. Of course, coffee and drinks were also there, and charging our devices one last time before we headed back to Addis.

We were late for the road, and the driver was a bit anxious that it might get dark when we got to Addis. We drove back to Durame, then Alaba, then Shashamene…… took a coffee break at Batu/Zaway, and around 7:30 PM we arrived at Tulu Dimtu.

As a final note, I want to thank Hasset Hiking, a small travel organizer, and am also immensely grateful for the Visit Kembata team. They made us feel at home, not a tourist at all and that is all we wanted.

If you are inspired and want to visit Kembata, please reach out to:

Hasset Hiking: Instagram
Visit Kembata: Instagram

Maps Of Ethiopia Socials: Twitter | Instagram

Have you ever wondered about the exact middle point of our country? Where do you think የኢትዮጵያ እምብርት is located? Don’t you find it intriguing? Because I do! So let's dive into the world of geographical centers and discover where our center is located.

People have been captivated by the concept of the "middle" for centuries. Ancient civilizations like Greece, Rome, and China all attempted to locate their empires' centers, often attaching them to spiritual significance or political importance. Nowadays, it's a symbolic geographic spot and a discussion topic for geography buffs like me. Most countries put a marker, a statue, and a park for visitors. Often it’s a protected tourist attraction spot with coordinates and maps. A cool site to take a selfie.

This kind of thing is usually handled by the countries or the regions' geographical society, surveyors association or historical societies or something that sort. Unfortunately, we don’t have that kind of association or civil society, and I hope pretty soon we will establish one.

There are different methods to calculate the geographical center of a country. One method is calculating the equidistant points of a country from all its borders, like calculating a point in a polygon. The other method considers the center of mass or centroid. This method, in basic terms, the principle calculates the point at which the object would balance horizontally on the head of a theoretical pin – its center of gravity. It's like putting a cutout of a country and trying to balance it on the tip of your pen.

So where is the geographical center of Ethiopia? Addis Ababa looks like a perfectly situated city considering the relative equidistance view we get when we see the map of Ethiopia. However, Addis is not the Geographic Center of Ethiopia.

It's difficult to calculate the exact center of an irregular polygon shape, such as a country border. Moreover, since there are multiple important points to consider when calculating the geographical center of a given country, it makes it even way harder to agree on one point, hence countries have multiple geographical centers based on different equations and objectives. For example, check the Geographical Center of the USA and you see different locations assigned by different parties for different purposes.

Approaches

Here is my amateurish attempt to find the geographical center of Ethiopia. First, we need to know the coordinates of our extreme points. I picked the following points by manually pinpointing the extreme border locations in each direction on Google Maps. Accordingly, the extreme points of Ethiopia are:

1.      Northernmost Point: 14.89°N, 37.9°E, Badme

2.      Easternmost Point: 8.1°N, 48.0°E, Dollo

3.      Southernmost Point: 3.4°N, 39.54E, Gurar

4.      Westernmost Point: 7.9°N, 33.0°E, Cueciar

Next, we need to know the two common equations when you calculate Geographical Centers. These are:

Geo Centroid

The geocentric (or geographical) centroid of a region, such as Ethiopia, is the theoretical point that represents the center of mass of the three-dimensional shape of the region, assuming that the entire mass of the region is evenly distributed throughout its volume. In other words, if you were to balance the entire country of Ethiopia on a single point, that point would be the geocentric centroid.

Turf Centroid

The turf centroid, also known as the "point-in-polygon" centroid, is a concept used in geospatial analysis to identify the center of a two-dimensional geometric shape, such as a polygon representing a geographic area.

The turf centroid is calculated as the geometric center of the polygon, and is defined as the point where an imaginary vertical line dropped from the centroid would intersect the polygon an equal number of times above and below the line. In other words, it is the balance point of the polygon, where the polygon would balance if it were a physical object.

Then I feed the four coordinates to different AI models to find the Geographical Center of Ethiopia based on the above extreme points. Below are the exact answers to my prompts:

Maps Of Ethiopia Socials: Twitter | Instagram

Mistral-Medium Model

To calculate the geographic center of Ethiopia using the extreme points given, we can find the average of the latitude and longitude values:

Geo Center (average method):

·         Latitude: (14.89 + 8.1 + 3.4 + 7.9) / 4 = 9.025° N

·         Longitude: (37.9 + 48.0 + 39.54 + 33.0) / 4 = 39.27° E

However, using an average method may not give the exact center due to the distortion of the map projection. For a more accurate calculation, you can use the Turf.js library in JavaScript to calculate the center based on a bounding box. Here's an example:

After running the code, you'll get the following Turf Center coordinates:

Turf Center:

·         Latitude: 8.036384480502081

·         Longitude: 39.44271262601196

These coordinates are more accurate and take into account the distortion of the map projection.

Therefore, according to the Mixtral-8x7B AI Model, the Geographic Centers of Ethiopia are:

1.      Geo Centroid: 9.025° N, 39.27° E

Around  Dire Dagomsa Medical Center, Chafe Donsa, East Shoa Zone, Oromia Region. Check the location at https://maps.app.goo.gl/buRK3FE4XKtgUi1N7

2.      Turf Centroid: 8.036384480502081N, 39.44271262601196E

Between Huruta and Hamda Diksis towns, a place called Aleko Agereselam in Arsi Zone, Oromia Region. Check the location at https://maps.app.goo.gl/U4Z4Q6DaDxDuAvhU8

Google-PaLM Model

1.      Geo Centorid: 9.46°N, 39.12°E

North of Addis, Between Muke Turi and Sheno towns, newar Kulo, Oromia Region. Check the map here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/P6Ltt2xBLcpJyUPH6

2.      Turf Centroid: 9.36°N, 39.29°E

Almost close to Sheno Town, not far from the Geo Centroid. Check the maps here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/t25b2BY9EGwK4k4f8

I am more confused now, the two AI models gave me different locations. Zooming out, they all seem pretty centered. I tried additional models and asked the same question, some models’ gave me very close locations to the above once and the others were just outright wrong.

Even though the locations may vary with different approaches, I am a bit disappointed that the results were very far apart and the AI Models didn’t give me much of an explanation why they all differ. I was hoping they would give me a solid answer since it’s a mathematical equation and not an opinion. I was wrong, they only gave something to speculate on.

I went back to Googling and found some interesting results. I found what seems like good data on the ObservableHQ website, they have an interactive map to locate geographical centers of all countries. You can see the map here (https://observablehq.com/@duyknguyen/geographical-center-calculator)    

According to ObservableHQ, Ethiopia’s geographic centers are:

1.      d3.geoCentroid: 8°36'51''N, 39°36'35''E

2.      turf.centroid: 9°10'36''N, 38°56'51''E

3.      turf.centerOfMass: 8°37'21''N, 39°36'02''E

4.      mapbox.polylabel: 8°47'51''N, 38°20'31''E

Now this makes it a little bit clearer, but we only need the Geo Centroid and Turf Centroid for our purpose. We are not here for the center of mass or Mapbox library.

The coordinates are:

·         Geo Centroid: 8°36'51''N, 39°36'35''E

·         Turf Centroid: 9°10'36''N, 38°56'51''E

I check the coordinates on Google Maps, and the results are:

Ethiopia’s Geo Centroid is Bose Doche, a location in the middle of nowhere between Wolnchiti and Merti Town, near Abomsa in East Shoa Zone, Oromia. Check the map here (https://maps.app.goo.gl/7kM7ugGZbKARv8oa6 )

Our Turf Centroid is located at a location called Deri Sokoru a village near Sendafa, Sheger City Special Zone. This location is closer to the location the Mixtral AI model gave us, Soten, a small village in North Shoa, Amhara Region.

To sum up, the candidate we have, the potential Geographic Center of Ethiopia are:

1.      Dire Dagomsa, East Shoa Zone

2.      Aleko Agereselam, Arsi Zone

3.      Kulo, North Shoa

4.      Sheno, North Shoa

5.      Bose Doche, East Showa

6.      Deri Sokoru, Sendafa

Dire Degomsa and Bose Doche and very close locations, they are an adjacent province between East Shoa and Arsi Zone. You can locate them between Welnchiti and Abomsa Towns. On the other hand, Kulo, Sheno, and Sendafa are also in proximity, they all are in North Shoa and Sheger City Zones.

Which location do you think best fits to be the Geographical Center of Ethiopia? Or do you have other potential locations?

Please be reminded that this is just a personal thought experiment and might not hold a scientific fact. I want this to be an inspiration to do further research and find the exact location of our Geographic center.

Geographical Centers are big tourist attractions and these locations will open the door for investment and development of the area. Please share this information with geography geeks, your surveyor friends, and teachers to further explore the idea.  

Maps Of Ethiopia Socials: Twitter | Instagram

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I saw this video on TikTok, almost three weeks ago. The video talks about በደረግ ዘመን ዝነኛ ከነበሩት ከተመቾ መካካል አንዷ ስለነበረች ፓዌ የምትባል ከተማ። I never heard of that town before and it has an odd name, Pawe. We don’t have a “P” sound let alone name a city እያልኩ ቪዲዮን ማየት ቀጠልኩ፡፡ Then I learned the town is in Benshangul Gumuz Region, now it make sense. The name fits the place. Anyway, the video was like 4 minutes and it was an inspiring one. The narrator talks about how productive and industrious the town was, it was a thriving community as if it was a perfect blend of socialist dream and forgotten civilization. Some of the claims made were so wild that, again my default-wired monkey brain cannot fathom the things he was mentioning. There was quality healthcare, free education, well-developed infrastructure, big mechanized farms with tractors and combine harvesters, and a lot of wonderful stuff that socialism promises but I never imagined it would be true.

I was thinking this is another fantasy we had about the past and it's just a nostalgic story of someone who is not happy with the present.  I often resort to this kind of thinking whenever someone is eager about the past times, I know it’s a short wring but….

However, my judgmental monkey brain persisted with the video. Mind you watching a 4-minute-long TikTok. Ikr! I sent the video to my friends and asked them if they knew anything, none of them heard the name before. It's kind of weird, but made-up stories are so common nowadays, that it didn’t bother me much, it's just one of those clickbait videos anyway ….

The next morning, I asked people at the office, and the response was the same. They never heard of the town. But I got more curious, especially since the big claims he mentioned seemed too bold to be just a fantasy or a myth. The dude was saying they used to have a flight, three times a day! They had free water, and one ambulance per Kebele. Like whaaat? They have big town halls and a professional stadium. I traveled to Benshagul Gumuz before, I traveled to the south and some very remote places, I always spark conversation about anything interesting in the areas and nobody ever mentioned this town called Pawe.

I opened my laptop, and the first thing I did that morning was googling Pawe town, it actually exists. There is a short Wikipedia article, “Pawe Special Woreda”, the story is a bit depressing. It was a forced settlement. Nothing glamourous like the TikTok video.  There is also a town called “Ketema” nearby, ከተማ የምትባል ከተማ፡፡ I checked the link and it used to be called “መንደር 7”, a typical socialist toponymy. This kind of toponymy is an indicator that it was a planned settlement created with a purpose. It’s a common soviet heritage, they like to name things with numbers. So I rest my case, this is just a random geographical queue that picks my interest, it’s a settlement camp with a gruesome history and moves on.

Then again last time I saw another video, a video from a travel account and it talks about a beautiful waterfall and forgotten irrigation dam in Gambella, again built by Derg. The view is truly stunning! The dude claims there is a scene in “Wakanda” that has been shot there. I was like, dude common! I then immediately googled it and it was a false claim. What a crap!

I go back to that Pawe video to check thinking maybe it’s the same dam. I checked my bookmarked video and it's gone. The video has been deleted! I searched the keyword, checked sent messages, and nothing, I could not find it. Searched with different keywords but I couldn’t find the video or the account.

So I did what a “normal and sane adult” does when they have free time to spend and have a child-like curiosity. I started digging!  Our ancestors used to dig the land to plant, for treasures, and to build castles. Since that is now out of fashion, great men of our time spend significant time digging into the virtual world and indulging in conspiracies, geopolitics, and “treasure” hunting.

I searched again and again about this damn city project, I found some links and some Facebook posts, but nothing substantial. Most of the findings were about how terrible the settlement program was and how bloodthirsty Derg was. But I started getting some clues, there was indeed a big irrigation project, settlement, and mechanized farm to combat the famine of the 1980’s. I hit the jackpot when I found a Cambridge University paper, that outlined the details of the project and how the Tana-Beles River Basin was a priority project for Derg in counteracting the devastating effects of the famine.  They developed a big irrigation on the Belese River, a tributary river to Abay with the help of the Italian government. Guess who the contractor was? You guessed it right, It was Salini, the same company building the GERD! It was a complex mega-project stretched between politics, engineering, and the unfolding famine, a disaster that kept knocking on our doors for generations.  Somehow they managed to build the dam on the Beles River and the settlements followed. To get more, I switched my search keyword to Amharic, and viola! I found the exact video on YouTube!

Then I hop on Google Earth, I know I will see something there, and I also know it has some historical data I can rewind if necessary. Boy, I was surprised by what I saw! I searched for Pawe Special Woreda and zoomed around the location for a minute. Not only there are towns, but it’s also a well-organized and planned settlement with a modern grid urban layout, big warehouses, and an airstrip. It was true they had a big airport! What a surprise! It was a scattered settlement, but it was real and I saw most of the claims made on the video.

There are well-planned roads, a football field, a big roundabout, an agricultural college, and many more. Collectively these villages are probably bigger than Adama, Hawasa, or Bahirdar but somehow they are missing from the mainstream discourse and even I, who think have above-average general knowledge, have no clue.  

The top view maps might not show the human suffering of the time as it was written on Wikipedia and various articles, but I found that the TikTok video holds some truth, and it was a thriving agricultural town. Ironically, I felt like I discovered something, something millions of people already knew but I didn't. This must be how the white savior explorers felt when they saw America or India for the first time. I felt my own cold audacity, and giggled!

Today, these settlements are known as Bales Zuriya, it’s a big town and there is a huge sugar mill up the stream to the North. The Tana Beles sugar factory stands north of the settlements with huge swaths of irrigated sugarcane plantations. But the rest of “መንደር”s are still scattered across a vast area of Metekel, west of Gojam.

Below are some of the images that surprised me, to see this level of urban detail that was built at least 40 years ago almost in the middle of nowhere.

Here are the pictures of Pawe and Beles, and please let me know if you happen to be from there or have some interesting stories about old towns. Also don’t hesitate to share your insights, correct me if I misrepresent anything.

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References

1. YouTube Video

2. Tana BelesMulti-Purpose Project - Salini

3. ፓዊ እንዴት አደረች - Facebook Page

4. The Tana-Beles Project in Ethiopia and the Making of Postcolonial Humanitarianism, 1938–1994 - Cambridge University Press

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