1.
Ethiopia
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Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north and northeast, Djibouti and Somalia to the east, Sudan and South Sudan to the west, and Kenya to the south. With nearly 100 million inhabitants, Ethiopia is the most populous landlocked country in the world and it occupies a total area of 1,100,000 square kilometres, and its capital and largest city is Addis Ababa. Some of the oldest evidence for modern humans has been found in Ethiopia. It is widely considered as the region from modern humans first set out for the Middle East. According to linguists, the first Afroasiatic-speaking populations settled in the Horn region during the ensuing Neolithic era, tracing its roots to the 2nd millennium BC, Ethiopia was a monarchy for most of its history. During the first centuries AD, the Kingdom of Aksum maintained a unified civilization in the region, subsequently, many African nations adopted the colors of Ethiopias flag following their independence. It was the first independent African member of the 20th-century League of Nations, Ethiopias ancient Geez script, also known as Ethiopic, is one of the oldest alphabets still in use in the world. The Ethiopian calendar, which is seven years and three months behind the Gregorian calendar, co-exists alongside the Borana calendar. A slight majority of the population adheres to Christianity, while around a third follows Islam, the country is the site of the Migration to Abyssinia and the oldest Muslim settlement in Africa at Negash. A substantial population of Ethiopian Jews, known as Bete Israel, resided in Ethiopia until the 1980s, Ethiopia is a multilingual nation with around 80 ethnolinguistic groups, the four largest of which are the Oromiffa, Amhara, Somali, and Tigrayans. Most people in the country speak Afroasiatic languages of the Cushitic or Semitic branches, additionally, Omotic languages are spoken by ethnic minority groups inhabiting the southern regions. Nilo-Saharan languages are spoken by the nations Nilotic ethnic minorities. Ethiopia is the place of origin for the coffee bean which originated from the place called Kefa and it is a land of natural contrasts, with its vast fertile West, jungles, and numerous rivers, and the worlds hottest settlement of Dallol in its north. The Ethiopian Highlands are Africas largest continuous mountain ranges, and Sof Omar Caves contain Africas largest cave, Ethiopia has the most UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Africa. Ethiopia is one of the members of the UN, the Group of 24, the Non-Aligned Movement, G-77. In the 1970s and 1980s, Ethiopia suffered from civil wars, the country has begun to recover recently however, and now has the largest economy in East Africa and Central Africa. According to Global Fire Power, Ethiopia has the 42nd most powerful military in the world, the origin of the word Ethiopia is uncertain
2.
Sudan
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Sudan, also known as North Sudan since South Sudans independence and officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northern Africa. It is the third largest country in Africa, the River Nile divides the country into eastern and western halves. Before the Sudanese Civil War, South Sudan was part of Sudan, Sudan was home to numerous ancient civilizations, such as the Kingdom of Kush, Kerma, Nobatia, Alodia, Makuria, Meroë and others, most of which flourished along the Nile. During the pre-dynastic period Nubia and Nagadan Upper Egypt were identical, by virtue of its proximity to Egypt, the Sudan participated in the wider history of the Near East inasmuch as it was Christianized by the 6th century, and Islamized in the 15th. As a result of Christianization, the Old Nubian language stands as the oldest recorded Nilo-Saharan language, Sudan was the largest country in Africa and the Arab world until 2011, when South Sudan separated into an independent country, following an independence referendum. Sudan is now the third largest country in Africa and also the third largest country in the Arab world and its capital is Khartoum, the political, cultural and commercial centre of the nation. It is a representative democratic federal republic. The politics of Sudan are regulated by an organization called the National Assembly. The Sudanese legal system is based on Islamic law, the countrys place name Sudan is a name given to a geographical region to the south of the Sahara, stretching from Western Africa to eastern Central Africa. The name derives from the Arabic bilād as-sūdān, or the lands of the Blacks, during the fifth millennium BC migrations from the drying Sahara brought neolithic people into the Nile Valley along with agriculture. The population that resulted from this cultural and genetic mixing developed social hierarchy over the centuries become the Kingdom of Kush at 1700 BC. The Kingdom of Kush was an ancient Nubian state centered on the confluences of the Blue Nile and White Nile, and the Atbarah River and it was established after the Bronze Age collapse and the disintegration of the New Kingdom of Egypt, centered at Napata in its early phase. After King Kashta invaded Egypt in the eighth century BC, the Kushite kings ruled as pharaohs of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt for a century before being defeated and driven out by the Assyrians. At the height of their glory, the Kushites conquered an empire that stretched from what is now known as South Kordofan all the way to the Sinai, pharaoh Piye attempted to expand the empire into the Near East, but was thwarted by the Assyrian king Sargon II. Sennacheribs successor Esarhaddon went further, and invaded Egypt itself, deposing Taharqa, Taharqa fled back to his homeland where he died two years later. Egypt became an Assyrian colony, however, king Tantamani, after succeeding Taharqa, Esarhaddon died while preparing to leave the Assyrian capital of Nineveh in order to eject him. However, his successor Ashurbanipal sent an army into southern Egypt and routed Tantamani. During Classical Antiquity, the Nubian capital was at Meroë, in ancient Greek geography, the Meroitic kingdom was known as Ethiopia
3.
River mouth
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A river mouth is the part of a river where the river flows into a larger river, a lake, a reservoir or an ocean. The water from a river can enter the body in a variety of different ways. The motion of the river mainly depends on the density of the river compared to the receiving water and any ambient motion in the receiving water. If the river water is denser than the surface of the receiving water, the river water will then either form an underflow or an interflow within the lake. Alongside these advective transports, inflowing water will also diffuse, at the mouth of a river, the change in flow condition can cause the river to drop any sediment it is carrying. This sediment deposition can generate a variety of landforms, such as deltas, sand bars, spits, many places in England take their names from their positions at the mouths of rivers, for example Plymouth, Sidmouth and Great Yarmouth. Confluence River delta Estuary Liman Aber and Inver
4.
Nile
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The Nile is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It is generally regarded as the longest river in the world, in particular, the Nile is the primary water source of Egypt and Sudan. The Nile has two tributaries, the White Nile and Blue Nile. The White Nile is considered to be the headwaters and primary stream of the Nile itself, the Blue Nile, however, is the source of most of the water and silt. The White Nile is longer and rises in the Great Lakes region of central Africa and it flows north through Tanzania, Lake Victoria, Uganda and South Sudan. The Blue Nile begins at Lake Tana in Ethiopia and flows into Sudan from the southeast, the two rivers meet just north of the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. The northern section of the river flows north almost entirely through the Sudanese desert to Egypt, then ends in a large delta, Egyptian civilization and Sudanese kingdoms have depended on the river since ancient times. Most of the population and cities of Egypt lie along those parts of the Nile valley north of Aswan, in the ancient Egyptian language, the Nile is called Ḥpī or Iteru, meaning river. In Coptic, the words piaro or phiaro meaning the river come from the ancient name. The English name Nile and the Arabic names en-Nîl and an-Nîl both derive from the Latin Nilus and the Ancient Greek Νεῖλος, beyond that, however, the etymology is disputed. One possible etymology derives it from a Semitic Nahal, meaning river, the standard English names White Nile and Blue Nile, to refer to the rivers source, derive from Arabic names formerly applied only to the Sudanese stretches which meet at Khartoum. Above Khartoum, the Nile is also known as the White Nile, at Khartoum the river is joined by the Blue Nile. The White Nile starts in equatorial East Africa, and the Blue Nile begins in Ethiopia, both branches are on the western flanks of the East African Rift. The drainage basin of the Nile covers 3,254,555 square kilometers, the source of the Nile is sometimes considered to be Lake Victoria, but the lake has feeder rivers of considerable size. It is either the Ruvyironza, which emerges in Bururi Province, Burundi, or the Nyabarongo, the two feeder rivers meet near Rusumo Falls on the Rwanda-Tanzania border. Gish Abay is reportedly the place where the water of the first drops of the Blue Nile develop. The Nile leaves Lake Nyanza at Ripon Falls near Jinja, Uganda and it flows north for some 130 kilometers, to Lake Kyoga. For the remaining part it flows westerly through the Murchison Falls until it reaches the very northern shores of Lake Albert where it forms a significant river delta
5.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
6.
Arabic
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Arabic is a Central Semitic language that was first spoken in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. Arabic is also the language of 1.7 billion Muslims. It is one of six languages of the United Nations. The modern written language is derived from the language of the Quran and it is widely taught in schools and universities, and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, government, and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, which is the language of 26 states. Modern Standard Arabic largely follows the standards of Quranic Arabic. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-Quranic era, Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics. As a result, many European languages have borrowed many words from it. Many words of Arabic origin are found in ancient languages like Latin. Balkan languages, including Greek, have acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has also borrowed words from languages including Greek and Persian in medieval times. Arabic is a Central Semitic language, closely related to the Northwest Semitic languages, the Ancient South Arabian languages, the Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include, The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense, the conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense. The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms, the development of an internal passive. These features are evidence of descent from a hypothetical ancestor. In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside of the Ancient South Arabian family were spoken and it is also believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages were also spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hijaz, Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages, in Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested
7.
Africa
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Africa is the worlds second-largest and second-most-populous continent. At about 30.3 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earths total surface area and 20.4 % of its land area. With 1.2 billion people as of 2016, it accounts for about 16% of the human population. The continent includes Madagascar and various archipelagos and it contains 54 fully recognized sovereign states, nine territories and two de facto independent states with limited or no recognition. Africas population is the youngest amongst all the continents, the age in 2012 was 19.7. Algeria is Africas largest country by area, and Nigeria by population, afarensis, Homo erectus, H. habilis and H. ergaster – with the earliest Homo sapiens found in Ethiopia being dated to circa 200,000 years ago. Africa straddles the equator and encompasses numerous climate areas, it is the continent to stretch from the northern temperate to southern temperate zones. Africa hosts a diversity of ethnicities, cultures and languages. In the late 19th century European countries colonized most of Africa, Africa also varies greatly with regard to environments, economics, historical ties and government systems. However, most present states in Africa originate from a process of decolonization in the 20th century, afri was a Latin name used to refer to the inhabitants of Africa, which in its widest sense referred to all lands south of the Mediterranean. This name seems to have referred to a native Libyan tribe. The name is connected with Hebrew or Phoenician ʿafar dust. The same word may be found in the name of the Banu Ifran from Algeria and Tripolitania, under Roman rule, Carthage became the capital of the province of Africa Proconsularis, which also included the coastal part of modern Libya. The Latin suffix -ica can sometimes be used to denote a land, the later Muslim kingdom of Ifriqiya, modern-day Tunisia, also preserved a form of the name. According to the Romans, Africa lay to the west of Egypt, while Asia was used to refer to Anatolia, as Europeans came to understand the real extent of the continent, the idea of Africa expanded with their knowledge. 25,4, whose descendants, he claimed, had invaded Libya, isidore of Seville in Etymologiae XIV.5.2. Suggests Africa comes from the Latin aprica, meaning sunny, massey, in 1881, stated that Africa is derived from the Egyptian af-rui-ka, meaning to turn toward the opening of the Ka. The Ka is the double of every person and the opening of the Ka refers to a womb or birthplace
8.
Lake Tana
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Lake Tana is the source of the Blue Nile and is the largest lake in Ethiopia. Lake Tana is fed by the Lesser Abay, Reb and Gumara rivers and its surface area ranges from 3,000 to 3,500 km, ² depending on season and rainfall. The lake level has been regulated since the construction of the control weir where the lake discharges into the Blue Nile and this controls the flow to the Blue Nile Falls and hydro-power station. Lake Tana was formed by volcanic activity, blocking the course of inflowing rivers in the early Pleistocene epoch, the lake was originally much larger than it is today. Seven large permanent rivers feed the lake as well as 40 small seasonal rivers, the main tributaries to the lake are Gilgel Abbay, and the Megech, Gumara, and Rib rivers. Lake Tana has a number of islands, whose number varies depending on the level of the lake and it has fallen about 6 feet in the last 400 years. According to Manoel de Almeida, there were 21 islands, seven to eight of which had monasteries on them formerly large, but now much diminished. When James Bruce visited the area in the later 18th century, he noted that the locals counted 45 inhabited islands, a 20th-century geographer named 37 islands, of which he believed 19 have or had monasteries or churches on them. Remains of ancient Ethiopian emperors and treasures of the Ethiopian Church are kept in the isolated island monasteries, on the island of Tana Qirqos is a rock shown to Paul B. Henze, on which he was told the Virgin Mary had rested on her back from Egypt, he was also told that Frumentius. The body of Yekuno Amlak is interred in the monastery of St. Stephen on Daga Island, emperors whose tombs are also on Daga include Dawit I, Zara Yaqob, Za Dengel, and Fasilides. Other important islands in Lake Tana include Dek, Mitraha, Gelila Zakarias, Halimun, the monasteries are believed to have been built over earlier religious sites. They include the fourteenth-century Debre Maryam, and the eighteenth-century Narga Selassie, Tana Qirqos, a ferry service links Bahir Dar with Gorgora via Dek Island and various lakeshore villages. There is also Zege Peninsula on the southwest portion of the lake, Zege is the site of the Azwa Maryam monastery. About 70% of the species in the lake are endemic. This includes one of two known cyprinid species flocks, which consists of fifteen relatively large, up to 1 m long. Eight of these are piscivorous and an important prey is the small Barbus tanapelagius, other noteworthy endemic species are Afronemacheilus abyssinicus, which is one of only two African stone loaches, and the tana subspecies of the Nile tilapia. Lake Tana supports a fishing industry, mainly based on the Labeobarbus barbs, Nile tilapia
9.
Gondar
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Gondar or Gonder is a city and separate woreda in Ethiopia. Located in the Semien Gondar Zone of the Amhara Region, Gondar is north of Tana Lake on the Lesser Angereb River and it has a latitude and longitude of 12°36′N 37°28′E with an elevation of 2133 meters above sea level. It is surrounded by the Gondar Zuria woreda, Gondar previously served as the capital of both the Ethiopian Empire and the subsequent Begemder Province. The city holds the remains of royal castles, including those in Fasil Ghebbi. One exception to rule was Debre Berhan, founded by Zara Yaqob in 1456. Beginning with Emperor Menas in 1559, the rulers of Ethiopia began spending the season near Lake Tana. These encampments, which flourished as cities for a time, include Emfraz, Ayba, Gorgora. Gondar was founded by Emperor Fasilides around the year 1635, and grew as an agricultural, there was a superstition at the time that the capitals name should begin with the letter Gʷa, which also contributed to Gorgoras growth in the centuries after 1600. Tradition also states that a buffalo led the Emperor Fasilides to a pool beside the Angereb, Fasilides had the pool filled in and built his castle on that same site. The emperor also built a total of seven churches, the first two, Fit Mikael and Fit Abbo, were built to end local epidemics, the five emperors who followed him also built their palaces in the town. In 1668, as a result of a council, the Emperor Yohannes I ruled that the inhabitants of Gondar are to be segregated by religion. This caused the Muslims to move into their own quarter, Islamge or Islam Bayt and this quarter came to be known as Addis Alem. During the seventeenth century, the population is estimated to have exceeded 60,000. Many of the buildings from this period survive, despite the turmoil of the eighteenth century, although Gondar was by any definition a city, it was not a melting pot of diverse traditions, nor Ethiopias window to the larger world, according to Donald Levine. It served rather as an agent for the development of the Amharas own culture. And thus it became a focus of national pride, not as a hotbed of alien custom and immorality, as they often regard Addis Ababa today, but as the most perfect embodiment of their traditional values. As Levine elaborates in a footnote, it was a pattern of development. Abdallahi ibn Muhammad sacked Gondar when he invaded Ethiopia June 1887, Gondar was ravaged again on 23 January in the next year, when Sudanese invaders set fire to almost every one of the citys churches
