the country ethiopia is located in eastern africa and has 102 mio residents; its capital is addis ababa. it is land-locked since 1991, when eritrea (north of ethiopia) separated and became an independent state. . djibouti (an islamic country east of ethiopia) is the main harbour for ethiopia.
my large round trip through ethiopia was done in 2017.

ethiopia is a mountanous country. its main cities are located 2000m to 2500m high, and quite a few mountains are higher than 4000m, up to 4533m.

ethiopia has a history of about 3000 years. ethiopians tend to accept the belief that its kingdom was installed by menelik, assumedly the son of king solomon of israel and queen sheba from yemen. all kings up to the last one, emperor haile selassie (killed in 1974), claimed to belong to this dynasty.
the first kingdom was d'm't, 980-400 bc. the kingdom of aksum followed, lasting until about 500 dc. very early, in 330, christianity was established. ethiopia is an independent orthodox church.

for these two first ethiopian kingdoms historians mostly assume that they connected east africa with south arabia. yet there is no convincing proof yet whether the (mystic) queen sheba did reside in ethiopia (in aksum) or in yemen (in marib) or both.

ethiopia has always been famed for its dazzling landscapes, yet as famous are the countless churches, mostly orthodox ones, erected from about 400 dc onwards. the most admired ones are the "rock churches", now world heritage sites.

the next larger dynasty were the zagwes, ruling until 1270. the phase from 1632 to about 1830 is called the gondar period.
in 1886 addis ababa became the capital of ethiopia. the last emperor, haile selassie, was inaugurated there in 1930. 1974 to 1991 was the communist period. from 1992 onwards ethiopia has become a democratic parliamentary country.
the headquarters of the african union, the united nations economic commission for africa and other institutions are located in addis ababa - thus it is the "political capital of africa".
ethiopia is the only african country which was not colonialized, except for a brief occupation by italy from 1936 to 1944.

now 12 big galleries to specific issues will follow - may the reader enjoy both, to study the texts and the many pictures!