Countries
Key facts
- Capital
- Addis Ababa
- Region
- Africa, Eastern Africa
- Population
- 135,472,051 (2025)
- Area
- 1,127,127 km²
- Currency
- Ethiopian birr (ETB)
- Languages
- Amharic, English, Oromo, Tigrinya, Somali
- Calling code
- +251
- Internet domain
- .et
- ISO codes
- ET, ETH, 231
- Time zone
- UTC+3:00
- United Nations
- Member state
- Postal code pattern
- #### (# = digit, @ = letter)
Land and position
Ethiopia covers about 1,127,127 square kilometres. By area it ranks 28th among the 250 countries and territories on this site. It is a little smaller than Colombia and a little larger than Bolivia. It shares a land border with 6 neighbours: Djibouti, Eritrea, Kenya, Sudan, Somalia, South Sudan. It is landlocked, which means it has no sea coast. Its centre lies at about 8° north, 38° east, in the northern hemisphere.
Neighbours
People
About 135 million people live in Ethiopia (World Bank, 2025). That makes it the 10th most populous of the 246 places on this site with a figure, with about 1.6 percent of the world's people. On average there are 120 people to each square kilometre. About 24 percent of people live in towns and cities (World Bank, 2025). A baby born there can expect to live about 68 years (World Bank, 2024). Languages listed for it: Amharic, English, Oromo, Tigrinya, Somali, Sidamo. A person from Ethiopia is called Ethiopian.
Money and economy
The currency is the Ethiopian birr (code ETB, symbol Br). The World Bank puts the size of its economy (GDP) at about US$ 126 billion (2025), which is about US$ 933 for each person (2025).
Time
Ethiopia uses one time zone, UTC+3:00 (Africa/Addis Ababa). Clocks stay the same all year: there is no daylight saving time.
Time now: loading
Offsets are for January 2026. See Time Zones for a converter.
Largest cities
| City | People |
|---|---|
| Addis Ababa | 3,860,000 |
| Jijiga | 483,000 |
| Gonder | 466,000 |
| Mek'ele | 457,900 |
| Nazrēt | 456,900 |
| Warder | 450,400 |
City figures are from GeoNames and count the city itself, not the wider urban area. They can be some years old, so use them to see the order of size.
More in Eastern Africa
British Indian Ocean Territory, Burundi, Comoros, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mayotte, Mozambique. See the whole region.
Figures were collected on 11 November 2026 from the World Bank, GeoNames and the open countries data set. See About and data sources. Borders and names follow those sources and do not express any view on disputed territory.