Geography

Eritrea has a land area of 121,320 km2 and a population of over 4 million people. It borders Djibouti, Ethiopa and Sudan and has a Red Sea coastline of 1,151 km. Its territory also includes a large number of islands in the Red Sea with a total coastline of 1,083 km. The climate is hot and dry in the desert strip along the Red Sea coast, cooler and wetter in the central highlands with up to 61 cm. of rainfall annually and semi-arid in western hills and lowlands. The rainfall is heaviest during June to September except in the coastal desert. The terrain is dominated by an extension of the Ethiopian north-south highlands, descending in the east to a coastal desert plain, in the north-west to hilly terrain and in the south-west to rolling plains. The main working languages are Arabic and Tigrinya but Italian is widely spoken and English taught in some schools. Further details can be found at CIA Factbook.