About the Afar Region

• Home Page
• About the Afar Rift Project
  • Geological Background to Project
  • Aims of the Project
  • Experimental Programme
  • Beneficiaries of Project
• About the Consortium
  • People
  • Consortium Funding
  • BGS in Afar
• About the Afar Region
• Geology of the Afar Region
  • Stratigraphy
  • Stratigraphy (non-technical)
  • Structural Geology
  • Structural Geology (non-technical)
  • References
• News
• Results and Publications
• Fieldwork Campaigns
• Information for Schools
• Photo Gallery
• Links
• Contact Us
• For Consortium Members

About the Afar Region

The Afar region covers the northeastern part of Ethiopia. The Afar depression, also known as the Danakil depression, forms the northern part of the region and is largely desert, whilst the Awash River valley forms the southern part of the area.

The majority of Afar people live in the Afar region of Ethiopia, although there are significant minorities in neighbouring Eritrea and Djibouti. The population is largely rural and pastoralist. Afar is the principal language of the region and Islam (Sunni) the principle religion.

The region is well known for its early hominid fossil finds including 'Lucy', an Australopithecus afarensis, discovered in 1974, who lived about 3.2 million years ago and more recently in the summer of 2007 the discovery of hominid remains 3.5 - 3.8 million years old.

Geology of the Afar Region

Local people collecting water from 'Boinas', west of Gabho. These devices condense geothermal steam and provide sufficient water for drinking, washing, cleaning and watering animals. 'Boina' means 'white smoke' but actually refers to steam. Photograph by Tim Wright, January 2006.