Djibouti

Djibouti is a country in the Horn of Africa bordered by Somalia to the south, Ethiopia to the southwest and Eritrea to the north, with coastline on the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden to the east, covering 23,200 square kilometers. Djibouti City is its capital, and the population reached 1,066,809 at the May 2024 census, the smallest population of any mainland African country, composed of Somalis at 60 percent, Afar at 35 percent and Arabs at 5 percent, with French and Arabic as official languages and Somali and Afar as national languages; about 94 percent of residents practice Islam, the official religion. Part of the Land of Punt in antiquity, the territory came under French colonization in 1862 and remained French until independence on 27 June 1977, adopting its current constitution in 1992. Djibouti is a unitary presidential republic under a hereditary dictatorship, led by President Ismail Omar Guelleh and Prime Minister Abdoulkader Kamil Mohamed; the country controls access to major shipping lanes between the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, making it a critical refueling and transshipment hub, particularly for Ethiopian trade.