Ethiopia in other languages: exonyms, Addis Ababa, Amharic and regions

Ityoṗya, Aethiopia and the Habesha names

Amharic and Tigrinya write the name ኢትዮጵያ, romanised Ityoṗya; Ge'ez has the same letters, transliterated Ītyōṗyā. The dotted ṗ of the romanisation answers to a syllable sign of its own, ጵ, which the Latin alphabet has no plain letter for. The adjective is ኢትዮጵያዊ (ityoṗyawi).

Most of the world uses the Greek and Latin form. Greek writes Αιθιοπία, Latin Aethiopia, Coptic Ⲁⲓⲑⲓⲟⲡⲓⲁ, and from there come German Äthiopien, French Éthiopie, Spanish Etiopía and Russian Эфиопия (Ėfiopija), where the th of the Greek spelling appears as f. Turkmen, Uzbek, Kazakh and Azerbaijani took the Russian f as well: Efiopiya.

A second family goes back to Habesha. Arabic has الحبشة (al-Ḥabašâ) beside إثيوبيا, Persian and Pashto حبشه, Hebrew חבש (Ḥabaš), Swahili Uhabeshi, Hausa Habasha and Somali Xabasha. Turkic languages and their neighbours build a country name in -stan from it: Turkish Habeşistan, Crimean Tatar Abeşistan, Tatar Хәбәшстан (Xäbäşstan) and Avar Хӏабашистан.

A few entries stand outside both groups. Syriac writes ܟܘܫ (Kūš), Old Norse Bláland, and Afar uses Itiyobiya. Japanese エチオピア (Echiopia) and Korean 에티오피아 (Etiopia) follow the European form, while Chinese 埃塞俄比亚 (Āisè'ébǐyà) renders each syllable with a character.

From nine regions to twelve

Before the recent changes the list had nine regions, each a ክልል (kələl), and two cities administered on their own, Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa; ISO added Dire Dawa as an administration in 2002. Region names often carry the word ሕዝብ (ḥəzb, people) or its plural ሕዝቦች (ḥəzboč): the Harari People, the Gambela Peoples.

The southern region has since been divided three times. Sidama became a regional state in its own right and entered the ISO list as ET-SI in 2021; the Southwest Ethiopia Peoples followed as ET-SW in 2022. In August 2023 the remainder of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples region was replaced by two new regional states, Central Ethiopia with its seat in Hosaina and South Ethiopia with its seat in Wolaita Sodo. Neither has an ISO code yet, so the table still shows ET-SN.

Capitals have moved too. Afar is now governed from Semera instead of Asayita, and Hawassa, once the seat of the whole south, is the capital of Sidama. Oromia has two answers: its government sits in Adama in practice, while Addis Ababa, which Oromo calls Finfinnee, is its seat in law.