Everything You need to know about Ethiopia in 3 Minutes 🇪🇹

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Next up in our series of going through every single country in the world alphabetically is Ethiopia. Ethiopia has a population of around 125 million people. Its capital city is Adis Ababa.

[00:00:10]It's a federal parliamentary republic and it is the second most populous country in Africa. Amharic is the official language, but there's 80 other languages that are spoken as well.

[00:00:20]Ethiopia is also known as the cradle of civilization. That's where the fossil Lucy was found. People, scientists and archaeologists believe that all of humankind originate from Ethiopia.

[00:00:32]Ethiopia is a fascinating place and it's not just because they live on a completely different timeline than everyone else, which they do. They're seven years behind everyone else. In about 2 years, they're going to be going through COVID and it's going to be a disaster. But it's not just their years that are different. They also have 13 months with 30 days in each one of those months. Ethiopia is also one of the foundational places for Christianity.

[00:00:53]They have ancient artifacts that go back generations. For example, Lai Bail are these churches that are carved into stone in the ground and they were built in 13 in the 1300s. Why did they do that? Because Ethiopia is so hot. They knew that if they carved into stone and went down deep into the earth, they could stay at church longer because the stone was going to be a natural cooling device. And they carved these into stone again in the 13th century without any type of Milwaukee or DeWalt tools. One of the hottest places on earth is also in Ethiopia. The Danquil depression. It looks absolutely fake. Erla is also one of the craziest places that I've ever seen. It is a lava lake and it's one of the only ones on Earth. The Simeon mountain ranges kind of look like Ethiopian's version of the Grand Canyons, but they're marked by having all this green lush area around them.

[00:01:44]There's monkeys. There's all kinds of stuff that live in these mountains, and they're absolutely fascinating. The area of the Blue Nile falls is absolutely beautiful as well. It's the area that these falls actually feed the Nile River, which is one of the most important rivers of anywhere in the world. They are massive and extremely high. Many locals whenever they see the mist coming off of it will call them the smoking falls. A lot of places claim to have the best coffee in the world.

[00:02:07]Places like Peru and Colombia and Ecuador and on and on and on and on. But nobody else can claim that they were the first people to have coffee. Ethiopia takes that crown. There's a fellow named Cali apparently that watched his goats when they were eating the coffee beans off the tree and noticed that they got a little bit high and mighty and they were cruising around a little bit faster than he would. So he thought maybe they're eating something that is causing them to do that. And in fact, it was. It was coffee. They were getting a little caffeine rush. And Ethiopia bears the responsibility of stewarding the Nile.

[00:02:36]85% of all the water that comes through the Nile comes through Ethiopia. So they're responsible for that and they do a great job. Ethiopia is absolutely beautiful. I love looking at all the pictures for that. We actually just did a podcast with my buddy Ran on Ethiopia as well, so you could check that out.

[00:02:50]But that's it for Ethiopia. Next up in our series of going through every single country in the world alphabetically will be Fiji. Going to the heart of Pacific now. We'll see you then.