85% of the population get their livelihood form the land. Coffee (the word originates form the name of the province of Kaffa, in the osuth west of Ethiopia, the birth place of coffee) provides the bulk of foreign currency earnings, although the recent decline in world coffee prices has meant a fall in its share form 65% to around 45% (See the award winning documentary "Black Gold" for an expose of how Ethiopia's cofffee farmers lose out in the world markets.) The export of oilseeds, livestock, skins and hides (Ethiopia has the largest domestic livestock population in Africa), flowers textiles, pulses, and animal feed makes up the rest of Ethiopia's foreign currency earnings, with tourism makeing an increeasingly important contribution.

With an area of 1,112,000 square kilometres, Ethiopia is as large as France and Spain combined. From the north and running down the centre are the Abyssinian highlands, to the west of the chain the land drops to the grasslands of sudan, to the east to the deserts of the Afar and the Red Sea. South of Addis Ababa the land is dominated by the Rift Valley lakes. The main rivers are the Blue Nile, the Tekezze, the Awash, the Wabe Shabele, the Omo, and the Baro.

This can depend on where you are going. In most of the Country, the main rainy season runs from June to the end of Spetember, with short rains in March. In the Omo and Mago parks however, in Southern Ethiopia, the seasons are different with the main rains from March to June, and shorter rains in November. However, in a time of changing global weather patterns it is not longer possible to be absolutely definitive about the rains- in recent years unseasonable rains have made sections of the Omo impassable, for example.