ERI-ber-easo-e

1. General country information
1.1 Geography
Eritrea is located in North-East Africa (Horn of Africa) on the Red Sea. It shares a border with Sudan in the west,
Ethiopia in the south and Djibouti in the southeast. To the north-east, Eritrea lies on the Red Sea, opposite Saudi
Arabia and Yemen. The country has a land mass of approximately 120,000 km2 (10), and the coastline along the Red
Sea is 1,151 km long (11).
In geographical terms, Eritrea can be broadly divided into three main areas: the highlands, the coastal lowlands
and the lowlands and hilly landscapes of the west, with transitional zones in between. The coastal lowlands extend
along the entire coast and are characterised by a very hot desert climate with high humidity. These coastal lowlands
include the Danakil Depression in the southeast of the country and the Dahlak Archipelago, made up of more than
350 islands in the Red Sea. Hilly green landscapes lie between the lowlands and the highlands. The average altitude
of the latter is about 2,250 metres above sea level. The highlands benefit from a mild climate and fertile soil and
are the country’s most densely populated region. They are bordered in the west by further hills and lowlands which
extend to the Sudanese border, with a mild climate and savanna vegetation (12).
Agriculture is practised in the highlands; the lowlands are mainly inhabited by nomadic or semi-nomadic peoples (13).
1.2 Demographics
1.2.1 Ethnic groups
No census has been carried out in Eritrea since 1938 (14). Population estimates range between 2.5 (as of 1995) (15)
and 6.5 million (as of 2014) (16). The Eritrean Ministry of Information estimated the country’s population at 3.56
million in 2002 (17).
The Eritrean population is composed of nine officially recognised different ethno-linguistic groups:
• The Tigrinya (full name: Bihere-Tigrinya, who also refer to themselves as Deqi Kebessa, highlanders) account for
about half of Eritrea’s population. Most are Orthodox Christians living in the Eritrean highlands and in the cities
of the lowlands. The Muslim Tigrinya minority is referred to as Jeberti. Catholics are distributed mostly in parts
of the southern highlands.
• The Tigre, the second-largest group (about 30 % of the population), are mainly Muslims who make their living
from livestock farming. They are concentrated along the Red Sea coast and in the hills and lowlands of the west,
and divided into many clans; the largest of these, the Beni Amer, can be regarded as a transitional ethnicity sharing
many characteristics with the Beja or Hedareb. The language spoken by the Tigre has many distinct features but
mutually intelligible regional dialects.
• The Afar (approximately 5 % of the population, also known as the Danakil) are a pastoralist Muslim people who
live along the Red Sea coast and in the Danakil Desert in Ethiopia, Djibouti and Eritrea. Like the Somali, the Afar
are divided into clans.
(10) 124,300 km2 according to the Eritrean Ministry of Information, 117,600 km2 according to the CIA, 125,320 km2 according to Tesfagiorgis and 121,144 km2
according to Europa Regional Surveys of the World. These discrepancies are presumably due to the unresolved border disputes with Ethiopia and Djibouti.
(11) Eritrea — Ministry of Information, Eritrea at a Glance, 1 October 2009; CIA, The World Factbook, Eritrea, People and Society, 22 June 2014; Tesfagiorgis, M.,
Eritrea, 2010, p. 1; Europa Regional Surveys of the World, Africa South of the Sahara 2015, 44th edition, 2014, p. 455.
(12) Europa Regional Surveys of the World, Africa South of the Sahara, 2013, p. 463; Tesfagiorgis, M., Eritrea, 2010, p. 1-10.
(13) Tesfagiorgis, M., Eritrea, 2010, p. 1-10.
(14) National Statistics Office (Eritrea) and Macro International Inc., Demographic and Health Survey 1995, March 1997, p. 2; Awate, Politics of Census, 11 April 2014.
(15) Awate, Politics of Census, 11 April 2014.
(16) CIA, The World Factbook, Eritrea, People and Society, 22 June 2014; Europa Regional Surveys of the World, Africa South of the Sahara 2015, 44th edition,
2014, p. 455.
(17) Eritrea — Ministry of Information, Eritrea at a Glance, 1 October 2009.