Africa’s oldest country that’s been around 1,900 years longer than Egypt

has a very long and varied , and it contains some of the oldest civilisations and countries in the .

The first kingdom for which there is documentary evidence on the continent is that of Aksum, which probably emerged in the second century.

Therefore, is , and one of the most ancient in the world.

Ancient civilization based around the River Nile in emerged 5,000 years ago and reached its peak in the 16th century BC.

Ancient Egypt, renowned today as a place of half human, half animal gods, pharaohs, interactions with the Romans and mummies, accrued great power and wealth.

But it was not an independent nation until 1922 under King Fuad I.

Though its former coloniser Britain retained influence until the 1950s.

The UK was involved in a military and political blunder in that decade called the Suez Crisis, as Anthony Eden’s government tried to take back control of the Suez Canal after the Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalised the company that had been operated by Britain and France since 1869.

Ethiopia, meanwhile, is Africa’s oldest independent country, and the second largest in terms of population.

Other than a five-year long occupation by Italy, it has never been colonised.

It defeated the Italians at the Battle of Adwa, and ousted them once again in 1935–36 when it was invaded and occupied by fascist Italy during the prelude to the Second World War.

Therefore, it has served as a symbol of African independence throughout the continent’s colonial period, .

The state was a founding member of the United Nations, as well as the African base for multiple international organisations.

In ancient times Ethiopia was centred on Aksum, its imperial capital located in the northern part of the country, about 100 miles from the Red Sea coast.

Today, it holds territory that was consolidated during the 19th and 20th centuries, as imperial European powers carved up Africa.