Eritrea, officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. Its capital and largest city is Asmara. The country is bordered by Ethiopia to the south, Sudan to the west, and Djibouti to the southeast. The northeastern and eastern parts of Eritrea have an extensive coastline along the Red Sea. The country has a total area of approximately 117,600 km2 (45,406 sq mi), and includes the Dahlak Archipelago and several of the Hanish Islands.
Hominid remains found in Eritrea have been dated to 1 million years old and anthropological research indicates that the area may contain significant records related to human evolution. The Kingdom of Aksum, centred in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia, was established during the first or second century AD and was considered one of the four great powers of the world by the Persian prophet Mani, the founder of Manichaeism. It adopted Christianity around the middle of the fourth century. Beginning in the 12th century, the Zagwe and Solomonid dynasties held fluctuating control over the entire plateau and the Red Sea coast. Eritrea's central highlands, known as Mereb Melash ("Beyond the Mereb"), were the northern frontier region of the Ethiopian kingdoms and were ruled by a governor titled the Bahr Negus ("King of the Sea").
In the 16th century, the decades long attempt to conquer the Highlands by the Ottomans would result in failure forcing them to offer a peace treaty where they were limited to the Eritrean coastline. In May 1865, much of the coastal lowlands came under the rule of the Khedivate of Egypt, until it was transferred to Italy in February 1885. Beginning in 1885–1890, Italian troops systematically spread out from Massawa toward the highlands, eventually resulting in the formation of the colony of Italian Eritrea in 1889, establishing the present-day boundaries of the country. Italian rule continued until 1942, when Eritrea was placed under British Military Administration during World War II; following a UN General Assembly decision in 1952, Eritrea would govern itself with a local Eritrean parliament, but for foreign affairs and defense, it would enter into federal status with Ethiopia for ten years. However, in 1962, the government of Ethiopia annulled the Eritrean parliament and formally annexed Eritrea. The Eritrean secessionist movement organized the Eritrean Liberation Front in 1961 and fought the Eritrean War of Independence until Eritrea gained de facto independence in 1991. Eritrea gained de jure independence in 1993 after an independence referendum.
Modern Eritrea is a multi-ethnic country with nine recognized ethnic groups, each of which has a distinct language. The most widely spoken language is Tigrinya. The others are Tigre, Saho, Kunama, Nara, Afar, Beja, Bilen and Arabic. Tigrinya, Arabic and English serve as the three working languages. Most residents speak languages from the Afroasiatic family, either from the Ethiopian Semitic languages or Cushitic branches. In Eritrea, ethnic Tigrinyas make up about 50% of the population, with the Tigre people constituting around 30% of inhabitants. In addition, there are several Nilo-Saharan-speaking Nilotic ethnic groups. Most people in the country adhere to Christianity or Islam, with a small minority adhering to traditional faiths.
Eritrea is a unitary one-party presidential republic and a de facto totalitarian dictatorship, in which national legislative and presidential elections have never been held. Isaias Afwerki has served as president since its official independence in 1993. The country's human rights record is among the worst in the world. The Eritrean government has dismissed these allegations as politically motivated. Eritrea is a member of the African Union, the United Nations, and is an observer state in the Arab League alongside Brazil and Venezuela. It was part of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development until withdrawing in December 2025, "accusing the organisation of 'becoming a tool against' countries like itself."
The name Eritrea is derived from the ancient (originally Greek) name for the Red Sea, the Erythraean Sea (Ἐρυθρὰ Θάλασσα Erythra Thalassa, based on the adjective ἐρυθρός erythros "red"). It was first formally adopted in 1890, with the formation of Italian Eritrea (Colonia Eritrea). The name persisted throughout subsequent British and Ethiopian occupation, and was reaffirmed by the 1993 independence referendum and 1997 constitution.
Madam Buya, a fossil found at an Eritrean archaeological site by Italian anthropologists, has been identified as among the oldest hominid fossils found to date. This fossil has been said to reveal significant stages in human evolution and to represent a possible link between the earlier Homo erectus and an archaic Homo sapiens. Her remains have been dated to 1 million years old, making her the oldest skeletal find of her kind. It is believed that the Danakil Depression in Eritrea was a major site of human evolution and may contain other archaeological links between Homo erectus hominids and anatomically modern humans.
During the last interglacial period (roughly 130,000 to 115,000 years ago), the Red Sea coast of Eritrea was occupied by early anatomically modern humans. It is believed that the area was on the route out of Africa that some scholars suggest was used by early humans to colonize the rest of the Old World. In 1999, the Eritrean Research Project Team (which was composed of Eritrean, Canadian, American, Dutch, and French scientists) discovered a Paleolithic site with stone and obsidian tools dated to more than 125,000 years old, near the Gulf of Zula, south of Massawa, along the Red Sea littoral. The tools are believed to have been used by early humans to harvest marine resources such as clams and oysters.
Tools found in the Barka Valley, dating from 8,000 BC, appear to offer the first concrete evidence of human settlement in the area. Research also shows that many of the ethnic groups of Eritrea were the first to inhabit these areas.
Excavations in and near Agordat, in central Eritrea, yielded the remains of an ancient pre-Aksumite civilization known as the Gash Group. This included ceramics dated to between 2,500 and 1,500 BC.
Around 2,000 BC, parts of Eritrea were likely part of the Land of Punt, a kingdom first mentioned in the twenty-fifth century BC. It was known for producing and exporting gold, aromatic resins, blackwood, ebony, ivory, and wild animals. The region is known from ancient Egyptian records of trade expeditions, especially a well-documented expedition to Punt in approximately 1,469 BC, during the reestablishment of disrupted trade routes by Hatshepsut and shortly after the beginning of her rule as the pharaoh of ancient Egypt.
Excavations at Sembel found evidence of an ancient, pre-Aksumite civilization in greater Asmara. This culture is believed to have been among the oldest pastoral and agricultural communities in East Africa. Artifacts at the site have been dated to between 800 BC and 400 BC, contemporaneous with other pre-Aksumite settlements in the Eritrean and Ethiopian highlands during the mid-first millennium BC.
Dʿmt was a kingdom that existed from the tenth to fifth centuries BC in what is now Eritrea and northern Ethiopia. Evidence of a massive temple complex at Yeha suggests that it was most likely Dʿmt's capital. Qohaito, often identified as the town of Koloe in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, and Matara were important Dʿmt cities located in southern Eritrea.
The realm developed irrigation schemes, used plows, grew millet, and made iron tools and weapons. After Dʿmt fell in the fifth century BC, the plateau was dominated by smaller successor kingdoms. This lasted until the first century, when one of these polities, the Kingdom of Aksum, was able to reunite the area.
The Kingdom of Aksum (or Axum) was a trading empire centered in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia. It existed from approximately 100–940 AD, growing from the proto-Aksumite Iron Age period around the fourth century BC and achieving prominence by the first century AD.