Transport in Ethiopia 

Contents

Railways

Historic of picture of the Addis Ababa - Djibouti Railway in Dire Dawa with Alfred Ilg (taken sometime in 1902-1906)

total:

Railway links to adjacent countries

Maps

Ethiopian cities served by rail

Existing

Proposed

Several never-built lines were proposed by the Italians after their conquest of Ethiopia in 1935.

2008

A concrete sleeper plant has also been built at Dire Dawa.

2006

History

In French.2

Highways

As the first part of a 10-year Road Sector Development Program, between 1997 and 2002 the Ethiopian government began a sustained effort to improve its infrastructure of roads. As a result, as of 2002 Ethiopia has a total (Federal and Regional) 33,297 km of roads, both paved and gravel. The share of Federally managed roads in good quality improved from 14% in 1995 to 31% in 2002 as a result of this program, and the road density increased from 21 km per 1000 km2 (in 1995) to 30 km; however, this is still less than the average of 50 km per 1000 km2 for Africa.3

The Ethiopian government has begun second part of the Road Sector Development Program, which is scheduled for completion in 2007. This will involve the upgrading or construction of over 7,500 km of roads, with the goal of improving the average road density for Ethiopia to 35 km per 1000 km2, and reduce the proportion of the country area that is more than 5 km from an all-weather road from 75% to 70%.4

As of 2006, Ethiopia only had one expressway-the Addis Ababa Ring Road, a four-lane limited-access, divided highway, forming a beltway around the capital. Some portions are still yet to be completed. The majority of its interchanges consist of roundabouts. Pedestrian bridges were constructed every kilometer, to reduce the risk of accidents. While not built to expressway standards, many roads in Addis and other cities can be considered dual carriageways and have up to 4 lanes in each direction with hardly any junctions.

Ports and harbours

None. Ethiopia is landlocked and was by agreement with Eritrea using the ports of Asseb and Massawa; since the Eritrean-Ethiopian War, Ethiopia has used the port of Djibouti for nearly all of its imports.

Merchant marine

total: 12 ships (with a volume of 1,000 gross register tons (GRT) or over) totaling 84,915 GRT/112,634 metric tons of deadweight (DWT) (1999 est.); 9 ships (with a volume of 1,000 GRT or over) 81,933 GRT/101,287 DWT (2003 est.)
ships by type: cargo ship 7; container ship 1; petroleum tanker 1; roll-on/roll-off ship 3 (1999 est.), 1 (2003 est.)

Airports

84 (2005 est.)

Airports - with paved runways

total: 14
over 3,047 m: 3
2,438 to 3,047 m: 5
1,524 to 2,437 m: 5
914 to 1,523 m: 1 (2003 est.)

Airports - with unpaved runways

total: 68
over 3,047 m: 3
2,438 to 3,047 m: 2
1,524 to 2,437 m: 13
914 to 1,523 m: 27
under 914 m: 23 (2003 est.)

See also

Notes

  1. ^ RailwaysAfrica
  2. ^ http://www.train-franco-ethiopien.com/index.html
  3. ^ "Ethiopia - Second Road Sector Development Program Project", p.3 (World Bank Project Appraisal Document, 19 May 2003)
  4. ^ World Bank, "Second Road Sector", p.11

Further reading

This article contains material from the CIA World Factbook which, as a U.S. government publication, is in the public domain.