Population: As of early 2004, the United Nations estimated Ethiopia’s population at more than 70 million and growing at rates estimated as between 2.1 and 2.5 percent per year. Density averaged about 62 people per square kilometer but varied widely from region to region. The population is concentrated in the northern and southern highlands, the lowlands in the southeast, south, and west for the most part being far more sparsely inhabited. Only about 15 percent of the population is urbanized, making Ethiopia one of the least urbanized countries in the world. There is little internal migration, but the government is in the midst of relocating some 2 million highland farmers to land at lower elevations to address problems of population pressure and exhausted farming plots, a plan similar to the much larger relocation effort that the military government undertook in the 1980s for the same reasons. During the last three decades, tens of thousands of Ethiopians, many young and educated, have emigrated to Europe and the United States. At the end of 2003, Ethiopia was host to some 112,000 refugees, most of them Sudanese, whereas an estimated 19,000 Ethiopians were refugees or seekers of asylum, most of them residing in Kenya, Europe, or the United States.

Demography: According to the U.S. Population Reference Bureau, in 2003 the number of births per 1,000 population was 41, the number of deaths, 18. The infant mortality rate per 1,000 live births was 104.5. Life expectancy at birth was 46 years (47 years for females, 45 years for males). According to the United Nations Population Division, Ethiopia’s population in 2000 fell into the following age-groups: ages 1–14, 45.9 percent; ages 15–59, 49.5 percent; and ages 60 and older, 4.6 percent, making Ethiopia a typical sub-Saharan country with a large proportion of its population under 15 years of age and a large proportion of women within the reproductive years of 15–49 years of age. For the years 2000–2005, the average number of children per woman was estimated at 6.1.

Ethnic Groups and Languages: Ethnic classification in Ethiopia is difficult because people categorized on the basis of one criterion, such as language, may be divided on the basis of another, such as ethnic identity. Language, however, often is used to classify various groups of peoples. At least 70 languages are spoken as mother tongues, but several predominate. Most belong to the Semitic, Cushitic, or Omotic families of the larger Afro-Asiatic super-language family; a small number belong to the Nilo-Saharan family of languages. The largest Semitic-speaking groups are the Amhara, who speak Amharic, formerly the official language that is still quite widely used, and who constitute perhaps 25 percent of the population; and the Tigray, who speak Tigrinya and account for perhaps 14 percent of Ethiopia’s people. The Amhara occupy the center of the northern highlands, the Tigray, the far north. Both are plow agriculturalists. Smaller groups include the Gurague, Hareri, and Argobba.

Cushitic-speakers include a large number of groups, most of whom live in the southern highlands. Among them is the largest and most widespread of all of Ethiopia’s ethnic groups—the Oromo, perhaps 40 percent of the population, who live in the center-west and in the central southern highlands. Some are agriculturalists and others pastoralists. The Oromo language consists of a number of dialects. The Somali occupy the southeastern lowlands; they are pastoralists and are organized into clans and lineages. North of the Somali are the Afar or Denakil, pastoralists who inhabit the hot lowlands between the Red Sea and the northern highlands. In the southwest southern highlands are several groups who speak related languages sometimes called Sidamo languages. The largest of these are the Sidama and the Hadya-Libido, cultivators of ensete and coffee. Finally, in the northern highlands are several small groups known as the Agew, Cushitic-speaking agriculturalists who successfully preserved their ethnic identity in the face of Amhara acculturation during the last two millennia. In 1970 they numbered upwards of 125,000. Among these Agew-speakers are the Awi, Kimant, and Beta Israel (Felasha).

In the far southwest on both sides of the Omo River are perhaps 80 groups of Omotic-speakers, of whom the Welamo are the most numerous. They are hoe cultivators; some specialize in craftwork and weaving. In the far southwest and western borderlands with Sudan are groups who speak Nilo-Saharan languages. They are hoe cultivators and cattle keepers. In the south are the Anuak and the Nuer, who are the most numerous. Farther north are smaller groups, such as the Gumuz and the Berta, and, in western Tigray, the Kunema.

Religion: No reliable statistics exist on religious affiliation in Ethiopia. Still, clearly, by far the largest faiths are Orthodox Christianity and Islam. Each is thought to constitute perhaps 40 to 45 percent of the population. Orthodoxy was introduced to the ancient Aksumites from the Byzantine world in about 340 A. D., thereafter slowly spreading southward into the northern highlands. Islam was introduced a few centuries later by merchants from Arabia to peoples along the Red Sea coast, spreading thereafter into the center and south. Orthodoxy is most strongly represented among the Tigray and Amhara, Islam among the Somali, Afar, Oromo, particularly those in the southern highlands, Gurague, and Sidama in the southwest. Merchants in major towns also tend to be Muslims. In the east and to an extent in the south, Muslim peoples surround Orthodox Christians. Protestants number perhaps 11 million, constituting up to 10 percent of the population. Smaller groups include Roman Catholics (about 500,000), Eastern Rite Catholics, and Ethiopian Jews (Felasha). A large number of foreign missionaries are active, especially in the south and southwest borderlands. Some Ethiopians still adhere to traditional religious practices and beliefs.

Education and Literacy: Education is free from primary through university level and is compulsory on the primary level for pupils between the ages of seven and 13 years of age. Thereafter, further education is a question of access to facilities; whereas a profusion of primary schools are scattered across the countryside, secondary facilities are found only in larger urban areas. Consequently, enrollments decline drastically from the primary to the secondary level, and secondary facilities are severely overtaxed. The Education and Training Policy implemented in 1994 restructured the education system with the goal of improving the quality of education, although results have been mixed. Primary education, grades 1–6, begins at seven years of age; secondary education, grades 7–12, at age 15. After tenth grade, students are separated into university-bound candidates, who receive concentrated academic instruction, and those who receive commercial, polytechnic, teacher, or other professional training. According to United Nations estimates for 2000–2001, 47 percent of children in the appropriate age-group attended primary school. Attendance among girls, at 41 percent, lagged significantly behind boys, at 53 percent. At the secondary level, only 13 percent of children in the appropriate age-group attended (15 percent of boys, 10 percent of girls). The main university campus is Addis Ababa University. Universities also are found in five regional state capitals. In recent years, a number of private schools have sprung up to meet the demand for university-level instruction, especially in Addis Ababa. In 2001, according to the World Bank, education spending was equivalent to 4.8 percent of gross domestic product. In 2002 the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) estimated that only 41.5 percent of adults (49.2 percent male, 33.8 percent female) in Ethiopia were literate.

Health and Welfare: In terms of health and welfare, Ethiopia ranks among Africa’s—and the world’s—poorest nations. The World Bank classifies Ethiopia as a highly underdeveloped country with an estimated annual per capita income of about US$100. Poverty is widespread, with slightly less than half the population living below the basic needs poverty line. Health indicators are generally poor. The health care system is wholly inadequate, even in view of improvements in recent years.

Throughout the 1990s, the government, as part of its reconstruction program, devoted ever-increasing amounts of funding to the social and health sectors, which brought corresponding improvements in school enrollments, adult literacy, and infant mortality rates. These expenditures stagnated or declined during the 1998–2000 war with Eritrea, but in the years since, outlays for health have grown steadily, although they remain far below what is needed. In 2000–2001, the budget allocation for the health sector was ca. US$144 million; health expenditures per capita were estimated at US$4.50, compared with US$10 on average in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2000 the country counted one hospital bed per 4,900 population and more than 27,000 people per primary health care facility. The physician to population ratio was 1:48,000, the nurse to population ratio, 1:12,000. Overall, there were 20 trained health providers per 100,000 inhabitants. These ratios have since shown some improvement. Health care is disproportionately available in urban centers; in rural areas where the vast majority of the population resides, access to health care varies from limited to nonexistent. As of the end of 2003, the United Nations (UN) reported that 4.4 percent of adults were infected with human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS); other estimates of the rate of infection ranged from a low of 7 percent to a high of 18 percent. Whatever the actual rate, the prevalence of HIV/AIDS has contributed to falling life expectancy since the early 1990s. According to the Ministry of Health, one-third of current young adult deaths are AIDS-related. Malnutrition is widespread, especially among children, as is food insecurity. Because of growing population pressure on agricultural and pastoral land, soil degradation, and severe droughts that have occurred each decade since the 1970s, per capita food production is declining. According to the United Nations and the World Bank, Ethiopia at present suffers from a structural food deficit such that even in the most productive years, at least 5 million Ethiopians require food relief.

In 2002 the government embarked on a poverty reduction program that called for outlays in education, health, sanitation, and water. A polio vaccination campaign for 14 million children has been carried out, and a program to resettle some 2 million subsistence farmers is underway. In November 2004, the government launched a five-year program to expand primary health care. In January 2005, it began distributing antiretroviral drugs, hoping to reach up to 30,000 HIV-infected adults.

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This series of profiles of foreign nations is part of the Country Studies Program, formerly the Army Area Handbook Program. The profiles offer brief, summarized information on a country’s historical background, geography, society, economy, transportation and telecommunications, government and politics, and national security. In addition to being featured in the front matter of published Country Studies, they are now being prepared as stand-alone reference aides for all countries in the series, as well as for a number of additional countries of interest. The profiles offer reasonably current country information independent of the existence of a recently published Country Study and will be updated annually or more frequently as events warrant.