Emba Soira

Where is Emba Soira?

Emba Soira is part of the Eritrean Highlands.

You will find it in: Eritrea.

Summit: 14.738° N, 39.513° E

The story behind it

The word emba means a mountain with a flat top, and Emba Soira is exactly that: layers of hard rock lie on top of each other like a pile of stone plates, and the softest layers have been washed away from the sides, leaving steep walls and a level roof. Up here mornings are cold, the light is sharp and thin grass, aloes and low shrubs grow between stones. Farmers on the highlands build terraces on the slopes to keep soil and rainwater in place, and they raise barley, sorghum and goats. Not far to the east the land breaks off and drops towards one of the hottest, driest plains on Earth, so the mountain feels like the edge of two different worlds. Baboons move across the rocks in noisy troops, and eagles use the warm air rising along the cliffs.

Find it on the globe

Emba Soira is there as a small peak with its own shape — a horn, a ridge, a volcano — standing on the surface. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.

It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.