Djibouti

A city, a port and a railway, rented out to the world's militaries. France acquired footholds on this coast in the 1860s and 1880s and built Djibouti from 1888 for its deep-water anchorage, at a point where the Red Sea narrows to the Bab el-Mandeb strait through which a large share of world shipping passes. What made the colony pay was Ethiopia: the railway to Addis Ababa, completed in 1917, gave a landlocked empire its only modern outlet to the sea and the port a permanent transit revenue. The population is divided between Somali Issa and Afar, a split France managed and at times sharpened, and two referendums returned votes to stay French amid credible allegations of expulsions and manipulated rolls. Independence came on 27 June 1977, the last French possession on the African mainland to leave. A civil war between the two communities ran through the 1990s. The country now hosts American, French, Japanese, Italian and Chinese bases, the last being China's first overseas military facility, and base rents and port fees are a large share of national income. It is among the hottest countries on earth. The country has about 1.1 million people in around twenty-three thousand square kilometres. French and Arabic are official, with Somali and Afar widely spoken. Lake Assal is the lowest point in Africa and among the saltiest bodies of water on earth. A new electric railway to Addis Ababa opened in 2017. Most of Ethiopia's trade passes through its port, which is the country's central economic fact. Djibouti city holds around seventy per cent of the population.

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