The Ethiopia Djibouti Railway and Why Ethiopia Needs the Port

The Ethiopia Djibouti railway is the steel spine of one of Africa's most important trade routes. Ethiopia, a country of more than 120 million people, has no coastline, so most of what it buys and sells by sea passes through the ports of its small neighbour Djibouti. The share is commonly cited at around 90 percent of Ethiopia's seaborne trade. Two railways have carried that traffic: a narrow metre-gauge line built under a French concession and completed to Addis Ababa in 1917, and a new electrified standard-gauge line that opened in 2016 and began commercial service in 2018.

Alongside the trains runs a road corridor crowded with lorries, which still carries a great deal of the freight. Together, rail and road make a few hundred kilometres of desert and highland into one of the busiest working landscapes in the Horn of Africa. Walking east from Addis Ababa towards the Red Sea, the expedition's planned line follows much the same geography.

Why is Ethiopia landlocked?

For much of the twentieth century Ethiopia did have a coast. After the Second World War, the former Italian colony of Eritrea was federated with Ethiopia in 1952 and then annexed in 1962, giving Addis Ababa direct access to the Red Sea ports of Massawa and Assab. Assab in particular became Ethiopia's main commercial outlet.

That ended after a long war of independence. Eritrea became effectively independent in 1991 and formally so in 1993, following a referendum. At first Ethiopian trade continued through Assab, but the border war between the two countries from 1998 to 2000 closed the frontier, and Ethiopian cargo moved almost entirely to Djibouti. The relationship between the two neighbours thawed in 2018, but the habits, investments and infrastructure built during those years of closure have kept Djibouti at the centre of Ethiopian trade.

Being landlocked is not simply a matter of maps. It means every tonne of imported fuel, fertiliser, wheat and machinery, and every container of exported coffee, sesame or livestock, depends on a neighbour's ports, a cross-border road and the fees, delays and politics that come with them.

The old French railway: Djibouti to Addis Ababa

The first Ethiopia Djibouti railway grew out of a concession granted by Emperor Menelik II in the 1890s. Construction began at the Djibouti end in 1897, when the coast was the colony of French Somaliland. The line climbed inland across hot, dry country and reached the site of Dire Dawa in 1902. Dire Dawa itself grew up around the railway.

Money and politics then stalled the project for years. The final stretch up the escarpment to Addis Ababa was not completed until 1917, giving a line of roughly 780 km built to metre gauge. For decades it was the main way into and out of the Ethiopian capital for goods, officials and travellers, and it shaped settlements, markets and jobs along its length.

After the colonial period it passed into joint ownership by the governments of Ethiopia and Djibouti. Ageing track, conflict and competition from road haulage took their toll, and by the early 2000s services had shrunk to a fraction of what they had been.

The new electrified Ethiopia Djibouti railway

The modern Addis Ababa to Djibouti railway was built in the 2010s by Chinese state-owned contractors and financed largely through Chinese loans. It runs for roughly 750 km from the outskirts of Addis Ababa to the port area near Djibouti City, broadly following the old corridor but on a new alignment. It is electrified and built to standard gauge, which allows heavier and faster trains.

The line was formally inaugurated in 2016 and began commercial operations in January 2018. A journey that takes several days by lorry can be made by freight train in well under a day, and a passenger service also runs on the route. The railway connects with inland dry ports in Ethiopia, where containers can be cleared by customs before or after their journey to the coast, and with the newer terminals at Doraleh on the Djibouti side.

The project has been both celebrated and questioned. It is a striking piece of engineering and a symbol of Ethiopia's ambitions, but it has also raised questions about debt, reliable power supply, maintenance and whether freight volumes would match expectations. Many goods still travel by road, and the railway's success depends on everything around it working too: customs, ports, electricity and security.

The lorry corridor and the people who run it

Whatever the railway carries, the road remains the everyday reality of this trade. Long lines of lorries move between the Ethiopian highlands and the coast, using two main routes: one through the Afar region via the Galafi crossing, and a southern route via Dire Dawa and the border at Dewele.

Behind the statistics are drivers who spend days at a time on the road, mechanics and tyre menders in roadside towns, traders selling tea and food, customs brokers, dock workers and railway staff. Much of the drama of Ethiopian trade is in their working lives: heat, waiting at checkpoints and borders, fuel shortages, breakdowns and long periods away from family. These are the people the expedition hopes to meet and listen to, rather than looking only at the trains and cranes.

What the corridor means for both countries

For Djibouti, a country of roughly a million people, Ethiopian traffic is a central part of the national economy. Port fees, logistics, transport and services connected to the corridor support many jobs, and the government has invested heavily in new terminals and free trade zones. A fair question, and one the expedition wants to ask, is how widely those benefits are felt by ordinary residents.

For Ethiopia, the dependence is a long-running strategic concern. Governments in Addis Ababa have explored other outlets, including Berbera in Somaliland and, at times, Eritrea's ports, in the hope of spreading risk and lowering costs. These discussions are often politically sensitive across the region. For now, the Djibouti corridor remains the route that keeps Ethiopia supplied.

On the road through the corridor

The walk's current plan is to head east from Addis Ababa through the Awash valley and Dire Dawa towards the Djibouti border, then on to the coast. That means following, roughly, the same corridor the railways and lorries use, at a very different speed: about 30 to 35 km a day on foot, around 175 km a week, never after dark. Djibouti is where the walking line is planned to meet the sea again for the first time since leaving the southern tip of Africa, on the Gulf of Tadjoura near the southern entrance to the Red Sea. You can follow the full line on the route page.

This is also a place where the expedition has to be careful. Ports, railways, bridges and border infrastructure can be restricted subjects for photography in both countries, so the story will be told through people, public viewpoints and permitted material rather than through cameras pointed at sensitive sites. Leon, who works in photography and film (you can read more about him here), will be sharing what he finds in the journal once the walk is under way, and every place he passes is meant to receive a recorded act of kindness on the kindness ledger.

If this corridor interests you, two other stories connect to it: the history of Zambia and Tanzania's TAZARA railway, another Chinese-built line made for a landlocked country, and the question of whether Ethiopia was ever colonised. You can back the walk here.

Frequently asked questions

How long is the Ethiopia Djibouti railway?

The modern electrified line runs for roughly 750 km between the Addis Ababa area and the port of Djibouti. The older French-built metre-gauge line was roughly 780 km long.

Is there a passenger train from Addis Ababa to Djibouti?

Yes, the new line has carried passengers as well as freight since it began commercial service, although timetables and conditions change, so travellers should check current information locally before planning a trip.

Why does Ethiopia use Djibouti's ports?

Ethiopia lost its coastline when Eritrea became independent in 1993, and the 1998 to 2000 border war pushed its trade almost entirely through Djibouti, which remains the closest and best-connected port.

When did the new railway open?

It was inaugurated in 2016 and began commercial operations in January 2018.