Eritrea is a country in the Horn of Africa overlooking the Red Sea. Eritrea’s coastal location has long been significant to its history and culture; this is reflected in the country’s name, which is an Italianized version of the Latin term Mare Erythraeum, meaning “Red Sea”. The Red Sea served as a major trade route that nations such as Turkey, Egypt, and Italy sought to control by occupying ports along the Eritrean coast. It was also the route through which Christianity and Islam entered the region. With the promise of access to gold, coffee and slaves offered by traffickers in the southern Ethiopian highlands, Ethiopia was transformed into a nation from which the Eritrean people had to flee in the second half of the 20th century.
From Cape Kasar in the north to the Strait of Mandeba, which separates the Red Sea from the Gulf of Aden in the south, Eritrea’s coastline, which forms the country’s northeastern border, stretches for about 600 miles (or 1,000 km). Djibouti, Ethiopia and Sudan form the southeastern, southern and western borders of the nation.
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