Eritrea Country Info - Africa

Description and Basic Information

Eritrea with its capital Asmara is located in Africa (Eastern Africa, bordering the Red Sea). It covers some 121,321 square kilometres (slightly larger than Pennsylvania) with 5,028,000 citizens. Afar, Arabic and Tigrinya are the languages commonly used by the people in Eritrea (consider regional differences). Ethiopia, Sudan and Djibouti are bordering countries.

Eritrea is in East Africa, bordering the Red Sea, between Djibouti and Sudan, with a long disputed border with Ethiopia.Hot, dry desert strip along Red Sea coast; cooler and wetter in the central highlands (up to 610mm (24 in) of rainfall annually); semiarid in western hills and lowlands; rainfall heaviest during June-September except in the coastal desert. Bordering Ethiopia, there are north-south trending highlands, descending on the east to a coastal desert plain, on the northwest to hilly terrain and on the southwest to rolling plains. Eritrea retained the entire coastline of Ethiopia along the Red Sea upon declaring independence from Ethiopia in 1993.

Pictures from Capital (Asmara)

Photos provided by Panoramio are under the copyright of their owners.

About Eritrea

The landscape features dominated by extension of Ethiopian north-south trending highlands, descending on the east to a coastal desert plain, on the northwest to hilly terrain and on the southwest to flat-to-rolling plains. The average density of population is about 41 per km². The climate in Eritrea can be described as hot, dry desert strip along Red Sea coast with cooler and wetter in the central highlands (up to 61 cm of rainfall annually, heaviest June to September), semiarid in western hills and lowlands. Potential threats by nature are frequent droughts or locust swarms.

To reach someone in Eritrea dial +291 prior to a number. There are 48,500 installed telephones. And there are 141,100 registered mobile phones. The cellular networks operate on frequencies of 900 Mhz. Websites typically end with the top level domain ".er". If you want to bring electric appliances (e.g. battery charger), keep in mind the local 230V - 50Hz. The following list are the 6 regions/states in Eritrea we know off.

Demographic Statistics

In the year 2010, the total Eritrean population grew at a rate of 2.52% (or by 146,157 citizens). With 47,792 deaths and 193,949 babies born, the natural increase rate lies at 2.52%. 0 persons more in total immigrated to the country than emmigrated.

An overview of age distribution in Eritrea: Each pair of bars represents a single age group (male/female). Each group is spanning 5 years. E.g. 0 to 5 years, 5 to 10 etc. and group "0 to 5" being at the left end and "100 +" at the right end of the chart.

Based on content from wikitravel.org. The original article can be found here based on the work of these users.
Geographic information is based on the data provided by geonames.org, CIA factsbook and Unesco.