ritrea currently hosts a UN peacekeeping operation
that will monitor the border region until an international commission
determines and demarcates the boundary between the two countries.

Geography Eritrea

Location: Eastern Africa, bordering the Red Sea, between Djibouti
and Sudan

Geographic coordinates: 15 00 N, 39 00 E

Map references: Africa

Area: total: 121,320 sq km water: 0 sq km land: 121,320 sq km

Area - comparative: slightly larger than Pennsylvania

Land boundaries: total: 1,626 km border countries: Djibouti 109 km,
Ethiopia 912 km, Sudan 605 km

Coastline: 2,234 km total; mainland on Red Sea 1,151 km, islands in
Red Sea 1,083 km

Maritime claims: territorial sea: 12 NM

Climate: hot, dry desert strip along Red Sea coast; cooler and wetter
in the central highlands (up to 61 cm of rainfall annually); semiarid
in western hills and lowlands; rainfall heaviest during June-September
except in coastal desert

Terrain: dominated by extension of Ethiopian north-south trending
highlands, descending on the east to a coastal desert plain, on the
northwest to hilly terrain and on the southwest to flat-to-rolling plains

Elevation extremes: lowest point: near Kulul within the Denakil
depression -75 m highest point: Soira 3,018 m

Natural resources: gold, potash, zinc, copper, salt, possibly oil and
natural gas, fish

Land use: arable land: 4% permanent crops: 0% other: 96% (1998 est.)

Irrigated land: 220 sq km (1998 est.)

Natural hazards: frequent droughts; locust swarms

Environment - current issues: deforestation; desertification; soil
erosion; overgrazing; loss of infrastructure from civil warfare

Environment - international agreements: party to: Biodiversity, Climate
Change, Desertification, Endangered Species signed, but not ratified:
none of the selected agreements

Geography - note: strategic geopolitical position along world's busiest
shipping lanes; Eritrea retained the entire coastline of Ethiopia along
the Red Sea upon de jure independence from Ethiopia on 24 May 1993

People Eritrea

Population: 4,465,651 (July 2002 est.)

Age structure: 0-14 years: 42.9% (male 958,564; female 955,625) 15-64
years: 53.9% (male 1,192,454; female 1,213,313) 65 years and over: 3.2%
(male 73,017; female 72,678) (2002 est.)

Population growth rate: 3.8% (2002 est.)

Birth rate: 42.25 births/1,000 population (2002 est.)

Death rate: 11.82 deaths/1,000 population (2002 est.