River · Ethiopia
Awash River
Awash River is the most important river of Ethiopia that never reaches the sea. It begins on the highlands west of Addis Ababa and ends in Lake Abbe on the border with Djibouti.
Picture credit: Mjr74 (CC BY 4.0) · mjr74 (CC BY-SA 3.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where is the Awash River?
The river starts here: highlands west of Addis Ababa in Ethiopia.
It ends in the Lake Abbe on the border with Djibouti.
Countries on the river: Ethiopia.
The story behind it
The Awash is a river with a strange ending: instead of reaching an ocean it disappears into salty lakes in one of the hottest places on earth. On its way it crosses the Great Rift Valley, where crocodiles bask on sandbanks, hippos snort in the pools and oryx and baboons come down to drink. Afar herders water their camels here, and large farms use the river for cotton and sugar cane, so in the dry season very little water is left for the last stretch. Scientists dig in the valley for very old bones, because some of the earliest human ancestors were found near this river. How long the Awash really is depends on which branches are counted, so different books give different numbers. Floods in spring can wash away roads and huts within a night.
Questions children ask
How long is the Awash River?
The Awash is given as roughly 1 200 km long. Sources differ a little, because the lower course spreads into swamps and side arms that are hard to measure.
Which country does the Awash River flow through?
Where does the Awash River end?
It ends in Lake Abbe, a salty lake with strange limestone chimneys. The water does not flow on from there; it simply evaporates in the fierce desert heat.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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