Djibouti

Djibouti holds the African shore of the Bab-el-Mandeb, where the Red Sea narrows towards the Gulf of Aden, and the Gulf of Tadjoura cuts deep inland. Beneath the Afar lowlands three tectonic plates are pulling apart. Lake Assal, more than a hundred and fifty metres below sea level, is the lowest point in Africa, and Lake Abbe, on the Ethiopian frontier, bristles with limestone chimneys that vent steam. Yet juniper forest survives on the Goda Mountains.

Afar herders ranged across the north and west and Somali Issa clans across the south, and camel caravans hauled salt up to the Ethiopian highlands. France bought the anchorage of Obock from Afar sultans in 1862 and in 1888 began a new port across the gulf, the town after which the country is named. The railway to Addis Ababa, completed in 1917, made it Ethiopia’s outlet to the sea. French Somaliland was renamed the French Territory of the Afars and the Issas in 1967 and became independent in June 1977.

Nearly everyone is Muslim, and the day bends around the heat: offices close by early afternoon, when friends gather in the shade to chew khat. Skoudehkaris, rice simmered with lamb and cardamom, is the feast-day dish. The port carries the economy: container ships call at Doraleh, and an electric railway rebuilt in the 2010s hauls freight to Ethiopia. Salt is dug at Lake Assal, and whale sharks draw divers to the Gulf of Tadjoura in winter.