Abyssinia (/æbɪˈsɪniə/;^[1] also known asAbyssinie,Abissinia,Habessinien, orAl-Habash) was an ancient region in theHorn of Africa situated in the northern highlands of modern-dayEthiopia andEritrea.^[2] The term was widely used as a synonym for Ethiopia until the mid-20th century and primarily designates theAmhara,Tigrayan andTigrinya-inhabited highlands of Ethiopia and Eritrea.^[3][4]

Abyssinia ሐበሠተ (Ge'ez) الحبشة (Arabic)
Historical region
1887 Italian map of Abyssinia
Country	Ethiopia  Eritrea

The origin of the term might be found inEgyptian hieroglyphic as the designation of a southern region near theRed Sea that produced incense, known asḫbś.tj.w, "the bearded ones" (i.ePunt). This etymological connection was first pointed out byWilhelm Max Müller andEduard Glaser in 1893.^[3][4]

InSouth Arabian texts the name ḤBS²T appears in various inscriptions.^[3][4] One of the earliest known local uses of the term dates to the second or third centurySabaean inscription recounting thenəgus ("king")GDRT, another Sabaean inscription mentionsmlky hhst dtwns wzqrns (kings of HabashatDTWNS andZQRNS) Aksum and ḤBŠT. TheEzana Stone also namesKing Ezana as "king of the Ethiopians", which appears in other Sabaean texts asḤBS²TM or "Habessinien".

The Hellenized name of Habessinien,ABACIIN appears in an Aksumite coin of c.400 AD, and shortly after the first attestation inlate Latin in the formAbissensis. The 6th-century authorStephanus of Byzantium used the term "Αβασηνοί" (i.e. Abasēnoi)^[5] to refer to "an Arabian people living next to theSabaeans together with theḤaḍramites." The region of the Abasēnoi produce[d] myrrh, incense and cotton and they cultivate[d] a plant which yields a purple dye (probablywars, i.e.Fleminga Grahamiana). It lay on a route fromZabīd on the coastal plain to the Ḥimyarite capitalẒafār.^[3] Abasēnoi was located byHermann von Wissmann as a region in theJabal Ḥubayshmountain inIbb Governorate,^[6] perhaps related in etymology with the ḥbšSemitic root.^[7] Modern Western European languages, including English, appear to borrow this term from the post-classical formAbissini in the mid-16th century. (EnglishAbyssin is attested from 1576, andAbissinia andAbyssinia from the 1620s.)^[8]

Al-Habash was known inIslamic literature as a Christian kingdom, guaranteeing its a historicalexonym for theAksumites of antiquity. In the modern day, variations of the term are used inTurkey,Iran, and theArab World in reference toEthiopia and as a pan-ethnic word in the west by theAmhara,Tigray, andBiher-Tigrinya ofEritrea andEthiopia (see:Habesha peoples). TheTurks created theprovince of Habesh when theOttoman Empire conquered parts of the coastline of present-dayEritrea starting in 1557. During this,Özdemir Pasha took the port city ofMassawa and the adjacent city ofArqiqo.

• Ethiopian Empire
• Ethiopian Highlands
• Habesha people
• Horn of Africa