Djibouti

Overview

Djibouti is a small country in East Africa, that borders on the Red Sea, Eritrea , Ethiopia and Somalia . The French came into the area in 1862, having acquired the right to settle there from the Afar Sultans of Obock in exchange for money and other goods. Not to be outdone, the Sultan of Tadoura made a similar agreement with the French in 1884. The construction of the town and port of Djibouti began in 1888. According to the terms of a treaty signed between France and Ethiopia in 1897, Djibouti was to be "the official outlet for Ethiopian commerce" and, in consequence of this, a railway was later built. Djibouti was the last African country to gain its independence and it is still an important French base in the region.

The capital, Djibouti City is located in the south of the country close to the Somali border. It is an important harbor town and this is where the train going to Ethiopia leaves from.

Tadjoura is on the other side of the Gulf of Tadjoura and is a good place to go if you want to go diving.

Most of the land in the country is very dry and rocky. There are some spectacular rock formation, volcanoes and lakes, like Lugu Lake and Lugu Lake , inland but it requires some real traveling to get to them.

History

The French Territory of the Afars and the Issas became Djibouti in 1977. Hassan Gouled APTIDON installed an authoritarian one-party state and proceeded to serve as president until 1999. Unrest among the Afars minority during the 1990s led to a civil war that ended in 2001 following the conclusion of a peace accord between Afar rebels and the Issa-dominated government. Djibouti's first multi-party presidential elections in 1999 resulted in the election of Ismail Omar GUELLEH. Djibouti occupies a very strategic geographic location at the mouth of the Red Sea and serves as an important transshipment location for goods entering and leaving the east African highlands. The present leadership favors close ties to France, which maintains a significant military presence in the country, but has also developed increasingly stronger ties with the United States in recent years. Djibouti currently hosts the only United States military base in sub-Saharan Africa and is a front-line state in the global war on terrorism.