The Horn of Africa
The Horn of Africa is an arid to semi-arid peninsula sitting on the northeastern edge of the continent of Africa. The triangle shape of the peninsula resembles the horn of a Black Rhinoceros, a formidable creature that once called this region home.
The Horn of Africa is made up of Somalia, which occupies strips of land along the northern coast (along the Gulf of Aden) as well as the eastern coast which lies along the Indian Ocean. Ethiopia lies inland to Somalia, while Djibouti sits on the coast to the north of Somalia. Further north along the coast, although not visible in this image, lies Eritrea.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Terra satellite captured this true-color image is on September 16, 2016.The Horn of Africa consists of the countries of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia. It covers approximately two million square kilometers (770,000 square miles), and is inhabited by roughly 115 million people (Ethiopia: 96.6 million, Somalia: 15.4 million, Eritrea: 6.4 million, and Djibouti: 0.81 million). In ancient and medieval times it was called the land of the Barbaria and Ethiopians. Regional studies on the Horn of Africa are carried out, among others, in the fields of Ethiopian Studies and Somali Studies.Sometimes the term Greater Horn of Africa is used, either to be inclusive of neighbouring northeast African countries or to distinguish the broader geopolitical definition of it from narrower peninsular definitions. Certain media outlets and scholars might define the region as Abyssinian Peninsula.
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