Ethiopia's more than a million square kilometers are contained in a roundish shape, with an eastward point south of its center. Most of the nation is high, but a continental tear disects the plateau and continues as the Denkali Depression.
Along the rift are a series of lakes, starting with Turkana(2) in the south, including many mountain-bound ones and ending with a set in the desert sinks of the northeast. Not among them is Lake Tana in the north center, the source of the Abay, also called the Blue Nile. Generally the west side of the Ethiopian Highlands supply the Blue or White(3) Niles. The most important river in the northeast is the Awash, which receives water off the steep escarpment and ends in a chain of lakes near Djibouti. The Jubba system, including the Shebele, drains the southeast, where the plateau is lower--about 1,000 meters--and arid. Lake Turkana's northern feed, the Omo, flows out of the south end of the plateau.
Mount Dashan, toward the Ethiopian Highlands' north, tops 4,600 meters, but numerous other peaks are nearly as high.
Most of the people in Tigray speak Tigrinya; most in Afar speak Afar. Most people in Amhara and Benishangul Kilils and in the capital speak Amharic. In Oromia, most speak Oromo. In Somali Kilil, Somali is the main language, though many learn Arabic. In the southwest, no language predominates; most people there speak Afro-Asiatic languages from the Cushitic, Omotic or Semitic branches. Omotic is distinctly southwestern, but Cushitic includes Afar, Oromo and Somali, and the Ethiopian branch of Semitic includes Tigrinya and Amharic.
Probably the majority is Christian--the Amharic, most of the Tigrinya and some of the southwesterners; most of these Christians are Ethiopian Orthodox. The Moslems are next most numerous--the rest of the Tigrinya, the Afars, the Oromo, the Somalis and some southwesterners. There are followers of indiginous religions in the northwest and southwest.
The capital, Addis Abeba is the only city of over a million.
Addis Abeba, Harer and Oromia
Afar and Tigray Kilils
Amhara and Benishangul Kilils
Gambella and Southern Kilils
Somali Kilil
(1) Officially Itypia.
(2) Formerly Lake Rudolph.
(3) The Nile, including the White Nile, is the world's longest river.