Ethiopia occupies most of the Horn of Africa. The country covers approximately 1,221,900 square kilometers and shares frontiers with Sudan, Kenya, Somalia, and Djibouti. Its Red Sea coastline is about 960 kilometers long. The major physiographic features are a massive highland complex of mountains and plateaus divided by the Great Rift Valley and surrounded by lowlands along the periphery. The diversity of the terrain is fundamental to regional variations in climate, natural vegetation, soil composition, and settlement patterns.

Data as of 1991