Eritrea Regions

Eritrea is a long wedge of the Horn of Africa between Sudan, Ethiopia and Djibouti, with a Red Sea coast of more than a thousand kilometres. Since 1995 it has been divided into six regions (zobas), which are the units its administration, its census and its maps are organised around. They cover the country without a gap, the Dahlak Archipelago included.

The quiz: Name to place, on the map
Grouped by: The highlands and the west, and the Red Sea coast
In the game: 6 regions

Start

What you are looking at

The six regions of today, named in their usual English spelling. The capital's region, Maekel, is the smallest by a wide margin and sits in the middle of the highlands, wrapped by Anseba to the north west, Debub to the south and the Northern Red Sea to the east. Gash-Barka fills the whole west, bordering Sudan and Ethiopia. The two Red Sea regions share the coast: one above Massawa, one running down the Danakil depression to the border with Djibouti.

The groups are not an official classification. They split the country the way it is usually described, the cool highlands and the lowlands to the west on one side and the hot Red Sea coast on the other, and are a way to learn the map a piece at a time.

How to place one

Start with Maekel. It is the small region in the middle of the country, and every other name is easiest to find relative to it.
Look at what wraps it. Anseba lies to its north west, Debub to its south, and the Northern Red Sea to its east.
Go west. Gash-Barka is the largest block on the map and runs from the northern edge of the Debub region out to the Sudanese border.
Follow the coast down. The Northern Red Sea holds the coast and most of the islands, and the Southern Red Sea is the long thin region that carries on to the Djibouti border.

Every region, by group

Highlands and west4 regions: Anseba, Debub, Gash-Barka, Maekel
Red Sea coast2 regions: Northern Red Sea, Southern Red Sea

Worked examples

Maekel

The capital

Maekel is the small central region that holds Asmara. It touches only three other regions and never reaches the coast.

Southern Red Sea

The Danakil coast

The Southern Red Sea is the narrow south eastern region, a strip of coast and desert that runs down to the border with Djibouti and ends at the port of Assab.

Gash-Barka

The west

Gash-Barka is the biggest region, filling the lowlands of the west up to the Sudanese border, with Anseba above it and Debub to the east.

Frequently asked questions

How many regions does Eritrea have?

Six, and together they cover the whole country, so the game has no territory outside them.

Why is it Debub and not Southern?

Debub is the Tigrinya word for south, and it is the name the region goes by in English as well. The game uses it, as the Northern and Southern Red Sea regions use their English names.