1.
Djibouti
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Djibouti, officially the Republic of Djibouti, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is bordered by Eritrea in the north, Ethiopia in the west and south, the remainder of the border is formed by the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden at the east. Djibouti occupies an area of just 23,200 km2. In antiquity, the territory was part of the Land of Punt and then the Sabean, nearby Zeila was the seat of the medieval Adal and Ifat Sultanates. It was subsequently renamed to the French Territory of the Afars, a decade later, the Djiboutian people voted for independence. This officially marked the establishment of the Republic of Djibouti, named after its capital city, Djibouti joined the United Nations the same year, on 20 September 1977. In the early 1990s, tensions over government representation led to armed conflict, Djibouti is a multi-ethnic nation with a population of over 846,687 inhabitants. Arabic and French are the two official languages. About 94% of residents adhere to Islam, a religion that has been predominant in the region for more than 1,000 years, the Somali Issa and Afar make up the two largest ethnic groups. Both speak Afroasiatic languages, which serve as recognized national languages, Djibouti is strategically located near some of the worlds busiest shipping lanes, controlling access to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. It serves as a key refueling and transshipment center, and is the principal port for imports from. A burgeoning commercial hub, the nation is the site of various military bases. The Intergovernmental Authority on Development regional body also has its headquarters in Djibouti City, the Djibouti area has been inhabited since at least the Neolithic. According to linguists, the first Afroasiatic-speaking populations arrived in the region during this period from the familys proposed urheimat in the Nile Valley, other scholars propose that the Afroasiatic family developed in situ in the Horn, with its speakers subsequently dispersing from there. Pottery predating the mid-2nd millennium has been found at Asa Koma, the sites ware is characterized by punctate and incision geometric designs, which bear a similarity to the Sabir culture phase 1 ceramics from Malayba in Southern Arabia. Long-horned humpless cattle bones have likewise been discovered at Asa Koma, rock art of what appear to be antelopes and a giraffe are also found at Dorra and Balho. Handoga, dated to the fourth millennium BP, has in turn yielded obsidian microliths, additionally, between Djibouti City and Loyada are a number of anthropomorphic and phallic stelae. The structures are associated with graves of rectangular shape that are flanked by vertical slabs, the Djibouti-Loyada stelae are of uncertain age, and some of them are adorned with a T-shaped symbol
2.
Central bank
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A central bank, reserve bank, or monetary authority is an institution that manages a states currency, money supply, and interest rates. Central banks also usually oversee the commercial banking system of their respective countries, Central banks in most developed nations are institutionally designed to be independent from political interference. Still, limited control by the executive and legislative bodies usually exists, prior to the 17th century most money was commodity money, typically gold or silver. However, promises to pay were widely circulated and accepted as value at least five hundred years earlier in both Europe and Asia. The Song dynasty was the first to issue generally circulating paper currency, in 1455, in an effort to control inflation, the succeeding Ming Dynasty ended the use of paper money and closed much of Chinese trade. The Bank of Amsterdam, established in the Dutch Republic in 1609, is considered to be the forerunner to modern central banks. The Wisselbanks innovations helped lay the foundations for the birth and development of the banking system that now plays a vital role in the worlds economy. Along with a number of local banks, it performed many functions of a central banking system. Lucien Gillard calls it the European guilder, and Adam Smith devotes many pages to explaining how the bank guilder works, the model of the Wisselbank as a state bank was adapted throughout Europe, including the Bank of Sweden and the Bank of England. Established by Dutch-Latvian Johan Palmstruch in 1668, Sveriges Riksbank is often considered by many as the worlds oldest central bank, the lenders would give the government cash and also issue notes against the government bonds, which could be lent again. A Royal Charter was granted on 27 July through the passage of the Tonnage Act 1694, the bank was given exclusive possession of the governments balances, and was the only limited-liability corporation allowed to issue banknotes. The £1. 2M was raised in 12 days, half of this was used to rebuild the Navy and these modern central banking functions evolved slowly through the 18th and 19th centuries. The currency crisis of 1797, caused by panicked depositors withdrawing from the Bank led to the government suspending convertibility of notes into specie payment. The bank was accused by the bullionists of causing the exchange rate to fall from over issuing banknotes. Nevertheless, it was clear that the Bank was being treated as an organ of the state, henry Thornton, a merchant banker and monetary theorist has been described as the father of the modern central bank. An opponent of the real bills doctrine, he was a defender of the bullionist position, thorntons process of monetary expansion anticipated the theories of Knut Wicksell regarding the cumulative process which restates the Quantity Theory in a theoretically coherent form. Until the mid-nineteenth century, commercial banks were able to issue their own banknotes, many consider the origins of the central bank to lie with the passage of the Bank Charter Act of 1844. Under this law, authorisation to issue new banknotes was restricted to the Bank of England, at the same time, the Bank of England was restricted to issue new banknotes only if they were 100% backed by gold or up to £14 million in government debt
3.
United States dollar
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The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States and its insular territories per the United States Constitution. It is divided into 100 smaller cent units, the circulating paper money consists of Federal Reserve Notes that are denominated in United States dollars. The U. S. dollar was originally commodity money of silver as enacted by the Coinage Act of 1792 which determined the dollar to be 371 4/16 grain pure or 416 grain standard silver, the currency most used in international transactions, it is the worlds primary reserve currency. Several countries use it as their currency, and in many others it is the de facto currency. Besides the United States, it is used as the sole currency in two British Overseas Territories in the Caribbean, the British Virgin Islands and Turks and Caicos Islands. A few countries use the Federal Reserve Notes for paper money, while the country mints its own coins, or also accepts U. S. coins that can be used as payment in U. S. dollars. After Nixon shock of 1971, USD became fiat currency, Article I, Section 8 of the U. S. Constitution provides that the Congress has the power To coin money, laws implementing this power are currently codified at 31 U. S. C. Section 5112 prescribes the forms in which the United States dollars should be issued and these coins are both designated in Section 5112 as legal tender in payment of debts. The Sacagawea dollar is one example of the copper alloy dollar, the pure silver dollar is known as the American Silver Eagle. Section 5112 also provides for the minting and issuance of other coins and these other coins are more fully described in Coins of the United States dollar. The Constitution provides that a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and that provision of the Constitution is made specific by Section 331 of Title 31 of the United States Code. The sums of money reported in the Statements are currently being expressed in U. S. dollars, the U. S. dollar may therefore be described as the unit of account of the United States. The word dollar is one of the words in the first paragraph of Section 9 of Article I of the Constitution, there, dollars is a reference to the Spanish milled dollar, a coin that had a monetary value of 8 Spanish units of currency, or reales. In 1792 the U. S. Congress passed a Coinage Act, Section 20 of the act provided, That the money of account of the United States shall be expressed in dollars, or units. And that all accounts in the offices and all proceedings in the courts of the United States shall be kept and had in conformity to this regulation. In other words, this act designated the United States dollar as the unit of currency of the United States, unlike the Spanish milled dollar the U. S. dollar is based upon a decimal system of values. Both one-dollar coins and notes are produced today, although the form is significantly more common
4.
French franc
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The franc, also commonly distinguished as the French franc, was a currency of France. Between 1450 and 1999, it was the name of coins worth 1 livre tournois and it was revalued in 1960, with each new franc being worth 100 old francs. The French franc was a commonly held reserve currency of reference in the 19th and 20th centuries. The first franc was a gold coin introduced in 1360 to pay the Ransom of King John II of France and this coin secured the kings freedom and showed him on a richly decorated horse earning it the name franc à cheval. The obverse legend, like other French coins, gives the title as Francorum Rex. Its value was set as one livre tournois, john’s son, Charles V, continued this type. It was copied exactly at Brabant and Cambrai and, with the arms on the horse cloth changed, conquests led by Joan of Arc allowed Charles VII to return to sound coinage and he revived the franc à cheval. John II, however, was not able to strike enough francs to pay his ransom, John II died as a prisoner in England and his son, Charles V was left to pick up the pieces. Charles V pursued a policy of reform, including stable coinage, an edict dated 20 April 1365 established the centerpiece of this policy, a gold coin officially called the denier d’or aux fleurs de lis which had a standing figure of the king on its obverse. Its value in money of account was one livre tournois, just like the franc à cheval, in accordance with the theories of the mathematician, economist and royal advisor Nicolas Oresme, Charles struck fewer coins of better gold than his predecessors. In the accompanying deflation both prices and wages fell, but wages fell faster and debtors had to settle up in better money than they had borrowed, the Mayor of Paris, Etienne Marcel, exploited their discontent to lead a revolt which forced Charles V out of the city. The States General which met at Blois in 1577 added to the pressure to stop currency manipulation. Henry III agreed to do this and he revived the franc and this coin and its fractions circulated until 1641 when Louis XIII of France replaced it with the silver Écu. Nevertheless, the franc continued in accounting as a synonym for the livre tournois. The decimal franc was established as the currency by the French Revolutionary Convention in 1795 as a decimal unit of 4.5 g of fine silver. This was slightly less than the livre of 4.505 g, silver coins now had their denomination clearly marked as “5 FRANCS” and it was made obligatory to quote prices in francs. e. Coinage with explicit denominations in decimal fractions of the franc also began in 1795, decimalization of the franc was mandated by an act of 7 April 1795, which also dealt with of weights and measures. France’s first decimal coinage used allegorical figures symbolizing revolutionary principles, like the designs the United States had adopted in 1793
5.
Indian rupee
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The Indian rupee, is the official currency of the Republic of India. The rupee is subdivided into 100 paise, though as of 2011,25 paise is no more a legal tender, the issuance of the currency is controlled by the Reserve Bank of India. The Reserve Bank manages currency in India and derives its role in management on the basis of the Reserve Bank of India Act,1934. The rupee is named after the coin, rupiya, first issued by Sultan Sher Shah Suri in the 16th century. In 2010, a new symbol ₹, was officially adopted and it was derived from the combination of the Devanagari consonant र and the Latin capital letter R without its vertical bar. The parallel lines at the top are said to make an allusion to the tricolour Indian flag, the first series of coins with the new rupee symbol started in circulation on 8 July 2011. On 8 November 2016 the Government of India announced the demonetisation of ₹500 and ₹1000 banknotes with effect from midnight of the same day, a newly redesigned series of ₹500 banknote, in addition to a new denomination of ₹2000 banknote is in circulation since 10 November 2016. The new redesigned series is expected to be enlarged with banknotes in the denominations of ₹1000, ₹100. The word rupee was derived from the Sanskrit word रूप्यकम् or rupaya, the modern Indian rupee has a direct lineage from the rupiya, the silver coin, issued by Sher Shah Suri, continued by the Mughal rulers. Rūpa means to form or shape, example, Rūpyarūpa, rūpya — wrought silver, however, in the region of Bengal, the term taka has always been used to refer to currency. In the 14th century, Ibn Battuta noticed that people in the Bengal Sultanate referred to gold, today, the currency of Bangladesh is officially known as taka. The word taka in Bengali is also used generically to mean any money, currency. Thus, colloquially, a person speaking in Bengali may use taka to refer to money regardless of what currency it is denominated in, thus, in the states of West Bengal and Tripura the Indian rupee is officially known টাকা. Whereas, in the states of Assam and Odisha, the Indian rupee is known by names derived from the Sanskrit word ṭaṅka, টকা in Assamese. During his five-year rule from 1540 to 1545, Sultan Sher Shah Suri issued a coin of silver, weighing 178 grains, the silver coin remained in use during the Mughal period, Maratha era as well as in British India. Among the earliest issues of paper rupees include, the Bank of Hindustan, the General Bank of Bengal and Bihar, historically, the rupee was a silver coin. This had severe consequences in the century when the strongest economies in the world were on the gold standard. The discovery of large quantities of silver in the United States and several European colonies resulted in a decline in the value of relative to gold
6.
Waterbuck
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The waterbuck is a large antelope found widely in sub-Saharan Africa. It is placed in the genus Kobus of the family Bovidae and it was first described by Irish naturalist William Ogilby in 1833. The thirteen subspecies are grouped under two varieties, the common or ellipsen waterbuck and the defassa waterbuck, the head-and-body length is typically between 177–235 cm and the average height is between 120 and 136 cm. A sexually dimorphic antelope, males are taller as well as heavier than females, males reach approximately 127 cm at the shoulder, while females reach 119 cm. Males typically weigh 198–262 kg and females 161–214 kg, the coat colour varies from brown to grey. The long, spiral horns, present only on males, curve backward, Waterbuck are rather sedentary in nature. A gregarious animal, the waterbuck may form herds consisting of six to 30 individuals and these groups are either nursery herds with females and their offspring or bachelor herds. Males start showing territorial behaviour from the age of five years, the waterbuck can not tolerate dehydration in hot weather, and thus inhabits areas close to sources of water. Predominantly a grazer, the waterbuck is found on grassland. In equatorial regions, breeding takes place throughout the year, the gestational period lasts for seven to eight months, followed by the birth of a single calf. Waterbuck inhabit scrub and savanna areas along rivers, lakes and valleys, due to their requirement for grasslands as well as water, the waterbuck have a sparse ecotone distribution. The IUCN lists the waterbuck as being of Least Concern, more specifically, the common waterbuck is listed as of Least Concern while the defassa waterbuck is Near Threatened. The scientific name of the waterbuck is Kobus ellipsiprymnus, the waterbuck is one of the six species of the genus Kobus and belongs to the family Bovidae. It was first described by Irish naturalist William Ogilby in 1833, the generic name Kobus is a New Latin word, originating from an African name, koba. The specific name refers to the white elliptical ring on the rump, from the Greek ellipes. The animal acquired the vernacular name waterbuck due to its dependence on water as compared to other antelopes. The type specimen of the waterbuck was collected by South African hunter-explorer Andrew Steedman in 1832 and this specimen was named Antilope ellipsiprymnus by Ogilby in 1833. This species was transferred to the genus Kobus in 1840, becoming K. ellipsiprymnus and it is usually known as the common waterbuck
7.
Dhow
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Dhow is the generic name of a number of traditional sailing vessels with one or more masts with lateen sails used in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean region. Historians are divided as to whether the dhow was invented by Arabs or Indians, larger dhows have crews of approximately thirty, smaller ones typically around twelve. The exact origins of the dhow are lost to history, most scholars believe that it originated in India between 600 BC to 600 AD Some claim that the sambuk, a type of dhow, may be derived from the Portuguese caravel. The Yemeni Hadhrami people, as well as Omanis, for centuries came to Beypore, in Kerala and this was because of the good timber in the Kerala forests, the availability of good coir rope, and the skilled carpenters who specialized in ship building. In former times, the planks of a dhows hull were held together by coconut rope. Beypore dhows are known as Uru in Malayalam, the language of Kerala. Settlers from Yemen, known as Baramis, are active in making urus in Kerala. In the 1920s, British writers identified Al Hudaydah as the center for dhow building and those built in Al Hudaydah were smaller in size, and used for travel along the coasts. They were constructed of found in Yemen. Even to the present day, dhows make commercial journeys between the Persian Gulf and East Africa using sails as their means of propulsion. Their cargo is mostly dates and fish to East Africa and mangrove timber to the lands in the Persian Gulf and they often sail south with the monsoon in winter or early spring, and back again to Arabia in late spring or early summer. For celestial navigation, dhow sailors have used the kamal. The latter is a device that determines latitude by finding the angle of the Pole Star above the horizon. Baghlah – from the Arabic language word for mule, a heavy ship, the traditional deep-sea dhow. Baqarah or baggarah – from the Arabic word for cow, old type of small dhow similar to the Battil. Battil – featured long stems topped by large, club-shaped stem heads, badan – a smaller vessel requiring a shallow draft. Boum or dhangi – a large-sized dhow with a stern that is tapering in shape, the Arab boum has a very high prow, which is trimmed in the Indian version. Ghanjah or kotiya – a large vessel, similar to the Baghlah, with a curved stem, a fishing or trading dhow with a broad hull similar to the Jalibut, common in Lamu Island and the coast of Oman
8.
Ocean liner
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An ocean liner is a ship designed to transport people from one seaport to another along regular long-distance maritime routes according to a schedule. Liners may also carry cargo or mail, and may sometimes be used for other purposes, cargo vessels running to a schedule are sometimes called liners. The category does not include ferries or other vessels engaged in trading, nor dedicated cruise ships where the voyage itself. Nor does it include tramp steamers, even those equipped to handle limited numbers of passengers, some shipping companies refer to themselves as lines and their container ships, which often operate over set routes according to established schedules, as liners. Ocean liners are usually built with a high freeboard to withstand rough seas. Additionally, they are designed with thicker hull plating than is found on cruise ships. Once the dominant form of travel between continents, ocean liners were rendered obsolete by the emergence of long-distance aircraft after World War II. Advances in automobile and railway also played a role. As of 2015, RMS Queen Mary 2 was the ship still in service as an ocean liner. Ocean liners were the mode of intercontinental travel for over a century. In addition to passengers, liners carried mail and cargo, ships contracted to carry British Royal Mail used the designation RMS. Liners were also the way to move gold and other high-value cargoes. The busiest route for liners was on the North Atlantic with ships travelling between Europe and North America and it was on this route that the fastest, largest and most advanced liners travelled. Shipping lines are companies engaged in shipping passengers and cargo, often on established routes and schedules, regular scheduled voyages on a set route are called line voyages and vessels trading on these routes to a timetable are called liners. The alternative to liner trade is tramping whereby vessels are notified on a basis as to the availability of a cargo to be transported. The term ocean liner has come to be used interchangeably with passenger liner, beginning at the advent of the Jet Age, where transoceanic ship service declined, a gradual transition from passenger ships as mean of transportation to nowadays cruise ships started. In order for ocean liners to remain profitable, cruise lines have modified some of them to operate on routes, such as the Queen Elizabeth 2. The Italian Lines SS Michelangelo and SS Raffaello, the last ocean liners to be primarily for crossing the North Atlantic
9.
World War I
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World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany
10.
Bretton Woods system
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The Bretton Woods system was the first example of a fully negotiated monetary order intended to govern monetary relations among independent nation-states. Also, there was a need to address the lack of cooperation among other countries, the delegates deliberated during 1–22 July 1944, and signed the Bretton Woods agreement on its final day. The United States, which controlled two thirds of the gold, insisted that the Bretton Woods system rest on both gold and the US dollar. Soviet representatives attended the conference but later declined to ratify the final agreements and these organizations became operational in 1945 after a sufficient number of countries had ratified the agreement. On 15 August 1971, the United States unilaterally terminated convertibility of the US dollar to gold, effectively bringing the Bretton Woods system to an end and rendering the dollar a fiat currency. This action, referred to as the Nixon shock, created the situation in which the US dollar became a currency used by many states. At the same time, many fixed currencies also became free-floating, there was a high level of agreement among the powerful nations that failure to coordinate exchange rates during the interwar period had exacerbated political tensions. This facilitated the decisions reached by the Bretton Woods Conference, furthermore, all the participating governments at Bretton Woods agreed that the monetary chaos of the interwar period had yielded several valuable lessons. The experience of World War II was fresh in the minds of public officials, the planners at Bretton Woods hoped to avoid a repeat of the Treaty of Versailles after World War I, which had created enough economic and political tension to lead to WWII. The solution at Versailles for the French, British, and Americans seemed to be make Germany pay for it all, if the demands on Germany were unrealistic, then it was unrealistic for France to pay back Britain, and for Britain to pay back the US. Thus, many assets on bank balance sheets internationally were actually unrecoverable loans, in the 1920s, international flows of speculative financial capital increased, leading to extremes in balance of payments situations in various European countries and the US. In the 1930s, world markets never broke through the barriers and restrictions on trade and investment volume – barriers haphazardly constructed. The lesson was that simply having responsible, hard-working central bankers was not enough, Britain in the 1930s had an exclusionary trading bloc with nations of the British Empire known as the Sterling Area. If Britain imported more than it exported to, say, South Africa and this meant that though Britain was running a trade deficit, it had a financial account surplus, and payments balanced. Increasingly, Britains positive balance of payments required keeping the wealth of Empire nations in British banks, one incentive for, say, South African holders of rand to park their wealth in London and to keep the money in Sterling, was a strongly valued pound sterling. Unfortunately, as Britain deindustrialized in the 1920s, the way out of the deficit was to devalue the currency. But Britain couldnt devalue, or the Empire surplus would leave its banking system, nazi Germany also worked with a bloc of controlled nations by 1940. Germany forced trading partners with a surplus to spend that surplus importing products from Germany, thus, Britain survived by keeping Sterling nation surpluses in its banking system, and Germany survived by forcing trading partners to purchase its own products
11.
Centime
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Centime is French for cent, and is used in English as the name of the fraction currency in several Francophone countries. In France the usage of centime goes back to the introduction of the monetary system under Napoleon. This system aimed at replacing non-decimal fractions of older coins, a five-centime coin was known as a sou, i. e. a solidus or shilling. In Francophone Canada 1⁄100 of a Canadian dollar is known as a cent in both English and French. However, in practice, the form of cenne has completely replaced the official cent, spoken and written use of the official form cent in Francophone Canada is exceptionally uncommon. In the Canadian French vernacular sou, sou noir, cenne, and cenne noire are all known, used. In the European community cent is the name for one hundredth of a euro. However, in French-speaking countries the word centime is the preferred term, indeed, the Superior Council of the French language of Belgium recommended in 2001 the use of centime, since cent is also the French word for hundred. An analogous decision was published in the Journal officiel in France, in Morocco, dirhams are divided into 100 centimes and one may find prices in the country quoted in centimes rather than in dirhams. Sometimes centimes are known as francs or in former Spanish areas, pesetas
12.
Port of Djibouti
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The Port of Djibouti is a port in Djibouti City, the capital of Djibouti. It is strategically located at the crossroads of one of the busiest shipping routes in the world, linking Europe, the Far East, the Horn of Africa and the Persian Gulf. The port serves as a key refueling and transshipment center, and is the principal outlet for imports to. Seventy percent of the cargo at the port is shipped to or from Ethiopia, the port lost its direct railway access to Ethiopia when the Ethio-Djibouti Railway was abandoned. The Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway, opened in 2017, runs to the nearby Port of Doraleh, the ports strategic location on the Gulf of Aden makes it an important military outpost for the Great Powers. Several berths at the port are reserved for the use of the United States Navy, the Chinese Navy also uses the Port of Djibouti, but it is moving to a dedicated facility at the nearby Port of Doraleh. Djibouti as a maritime passage and a main trading route between East and West stretches back 3,500 years, the time of maritime explorations of the Red Sea. Its apogee came with the opening of the Suez Canal, the port evolved out of landlocked Ethiopias search for a maritime outlet, and Djibouti’s coastline provided both easy access and sheltered anchorage. Work on the Franco-Ethiopian Ethio-Djibouti Railways began in 1897 and completed in 1917, the completion of the railway greatly increased business at the port. Development at the port increased further between 1948 and 1957 with the construction of four deep-water quays and the dredging of the port access channels, on land, new warehouses and oil storage facilities were built, electricity and water supplies provided and railway lines laid. In 1952, the French oil company Pétroles de Somalie bunkered their first ship, between 1960 and 1970, port activity was developed as part of an international maritime exchange network. The Red Sea had become one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, bunkering traffic quadrupled in the ten years from 1954, reaching a peak of 1.8 million tons in 1965. Djiboutis strategic location enabled the port authorities to turn the port into a hub for the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, as well as for Europe, Africa. Containerization was the concept behind this new period of development. By the early 2000s, the Ethio-Djibouti Railways had deteriorated from a lack of maintenance, between 2011 and 2016, the Chinese built a high-capacity standard gauge railway to replace the colonial-era French railway. The Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway terminates at the nearby Port of Doraleh, as of 2013, the Djibouti Ports & Free Zones Authority is the governmental body administering the Port of Djibouti and other ports in the country. The organization also oversees the national free zones, serving as a liaison between the companies working therein and other government agencies, the DPFZA is subject to the Presidential Office. In September 2013, construction began on the Damerjog livestock port, the Port at Doraleh will relieve congestion at the original Port of Djibouti, adding 29 million tons of annual capacity
Djibouti
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