Horn of Africa

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The Horn of Africa. NASA image
The Horn of Africa. NASA image

The Horn of Africa (alternatively Northeast Africa, and sometimes Somali Peninsula) is a peninsula of East Africa that juts for hundreds of kilometers into the Arabian Sea, and lies along the southern side of the Gulf of Aden. It is the easternmost projection of the African continent. The term also refers to the greater region containing the countries of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia. As such, it covers approximately 2,000,000 km² and is inhabited by about 90,2 million people (Ethiopia 75, Somalia 10, Eritrea 4.5 and Djibouti with 0.7 million people).

Nations of the Horn of Africa.
Nations of the Horn of Africa.

Contents

[edit] Geography and climate

The Horn of Africa as seen from the NASA Space Shuttle, in May of 1993. The orange and tan colors in this image indicate a largely arid to semiarid climate.
The Horn of Africa as seen from the NASA Space Shuttle, in May of 1993. The orange and tan colors in this image indicate a largely arid to semiarid climate.

The Horn of Africa is almost equidistant from the Equator and the Tropic of Cancer. It consists chiefly of mountains uplifted through the formation of the Great Rift Valley, a fissure in the Earth's crust extending from Turkey to Mozambique and marking the separation of the African and Arabian tectonic plates. Most of the region is mountainous due to faults resulting from the Rift Valley, with the highest peaks in the Simien Mountains of northwestern Ethiopia. Extensive glaciers once covered the Simien and Bale Mountains but melted at the beginning of the Holocene. The mountains descend in a huge escarpment to the Red Sea and more steadily to the Indian Ocean. Socotra is a small island off the coast of Somalia, in the Indian Ocean, that is considered to be part of Africa. Its size is 3,600 square km and it is a territory of Yemen, the southernmost country on the Arabian peninsula.

The Horn is generally an arid region in spite of its closeness to the equator. This is because the winds of the tropical monsoon that give seasonal rains to the Sahel and Soudan blow from the west. Consequently, they lose their moisture on reaching Djibouti and Somalia, with the result that most of the Horn receives little rainfall during the monsoon. On the windward side in the west and centre of Ethiopia and the extreme south of Eritrea, monsoonal rainfall is heavy. In the mountains of Ethiopia many areas receive over 2,000mm (78 inches) per year and even Asmara received 570mm (23 inches). This rainfall provides the sole source of water for many areas far from Ethiopia, most famously for Egypt, which in terms of rainfall is the driest nation on Earth.

In the winter, the northeasterly trade winds do not provide any moisture except in mountainous areas of northern Somalia, where rainfall in late autumn can produce annual totals as high as 500mm (20 inches). On the eastern coast, a strong upwelling and the fact that the winds blow parallel to the coast means annual rainfall can be as low as 51mm (2 inches).

Temperatures on the Red Sea coast are some of the hottest in the world, typically around 41°C (106°F) in July and 32°C (90°F) in January. On the east coast owing to the upwelling they are somewhat cooler but still hot. As elevation increases, temperatures decrease, so that at Asmara maxima are around 20°C (68°F) but frosts are frequent on cloudless nights, whilst on the highest peaks of the Simien Mountains, temperatures are rarely about 14°C (57°F) and can be as low as -10°C (14°F) on cloudless nights.

[edit] History

[edit] Ancient history

The Kingdom of Aksum (also known as "Axum") was an African state located in Ethiopia, Eritrea, northern Somalia and Yemen that thrived between the 1st and 7th centuries. Due to the Horn's strategic location, it has been used to restrict access to the Red Sea in the past.

Dhow - modern version of traditional trading ship
Dhow - modern version of traditional trading ship

The region was also a source of biological resources during the Antiquity: The ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans sent expeditions to the region for frankincense, myrrh, dragon's blood or cinnabar and took these commodities back along the Incense Route. Therefore the Romans called this region Regio Aromatica. It is believed to also contain the fabled Egyptian Land of Punt.

The Horn was also part of a network of ports that extended down the coast of Africa, from the Persian Gulf as part of a larger and ancient commerce route along the greater Indian Ocean rim.

[edit] Modern history

In recent decades, the Horn of Africa has been a region continuously in crisis. Ethiopia occupies a predominant position in the Horn because of its demographic importance: about 85% of the area's population live in this country. Yet Ethiopia's history is largely marked by conflicts between Muslims and Christians for resources and living space, as well as between nationalism and Marxism-Leninism in the modern times. The rest of the region also faces continuous wars: a civil war erupted in Somalia in 1977, resulting in the country having had no functioning national government since 1991. Sudan, with the Sudanese Civil War, represents another important source of instability for the whole region. Conflicts have also occurred in Djibouti and Eritrea.

Moreover, the region is regularly stricken by natural catastrophes, such as droughts (in Ethiopia) or flood (Somalia) that hit rural areas particularly hard. As a result, the region has some of the world's highest levels of malnutrition and is continuously threatened with a major humanitarian crisis. Between 1982 and 1992, about two million people died in the Horn of Africa due to this combination of war and famine.

The Horn of Africa, since 2002, has been a major focus of attention by the United States, France, Germany, and eleven African nations regarding the War on Terrorism.

[edit] Culture and ethnicity

The countries of the Horn of Africa are culturally linked together. Local people have been using the plow for cultivation and kept the Arabian dromedary as domestic animals for a long time. Some important ethno-linguistic groups in the Horn of Africa are:

  • In Djibouti: the Afar (Danakil) and the Somali (Issa)

[edit] Economy

States of the region depend largely on a few key exports:

[edit] Ecology

The Grevy's zebra (Equus grevyi)
The Grevy's zebra (Equus grevyi)

The Horn of Africa is a UNESCO Biodiversity Hotspot and one of the two entirely arid ones. However the Horn of Africa suffers largely from overgrazing and only 5% of its original habitat still remains. On Socotra, another great threat is the development of infrastructure.

[edit] Fauna

About 220 mammals are found in the Horn of Africa. Among threatened species of the region, we find several antelopes such as the beira, the dibatag, the silver dikdik and the Speke’s gazelle. Other remarkable species include the Somali wild ass, the desert warthog, the Hamadryas Baboon, the Somali pygmy gerbil, the ammodile and the Speke’s pectinator. The Grevy's zebra is the unique wild equid of the region.

Some important bird species of the Horn are the Bulo Burti boubou, the golden-winged grosbeak, the Warsangli linnet or the Djibouti francolin.

The Horn of Africa holds more endemic reptiles than anywhere else in Africa, with about 90 species over about 285 found exclusively here. Among endemic reptile genera, there are Haackgreerius, Haemodracon, Ditypophis, Pachycalamus or Aeluroglena. Half of these genera are uniquely found on Socotra. Unlike reptiles, amphibians are poorly represented in the region.

There are about 100 species of freshwater fish in the Horn of Africa, about 10 of which are endemic. Among the endemic, we find the cave-dwelling Somali blind barb and the Somali cavefish.

[edit] Flora

It is estimated that about 5,000 species of vascular plants are found in the Horn, about the half of which is endemic. Endemism is most developed in Socotra and Northern Somalia. The region has two endemic plant families: the Barbeyaceae and the Dirachmaceae. Among the other remarkable species, there are the cucumber tree found only on Socotra, the Bankoualé palm, the Yeheb nut or the Somali cyclamen.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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