Environment - current issues: deforestation; desertification; soil erosion; overgrazing; loss of infrastructure from civil warfare
Environment - international agreements:
party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Desertification, Endangered
Species, Hazardous Wastes
signed, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements
Geography - note:
strategic geopolitical position along world's busiest shipping
lanes; Eritrea retained the entire coastline of Ethiopia along the
Red Sea upon de jure independence from Ethiopia on 24 May 1993
People Eritrea
Population:
4,786,994 (July 2006 est.)
Age structure:
0-14 years: 44% (male 1,059,458/female 1,046,955)
15-64 years: 52.5% (male 1,244,153/female 1,268,189)
65 years and over: 3.5% (male 82,112/female 86,127) (2006 est.)
Median age:
total: 17.8 years
male: 17.6 years
female: 18 years (2006 est.)
Population growth rate:
2.47% (2006 est.)
Birth rate:
34.33 births/1,000 population (2006 est.)
Death rate:
9.6 deaths/1,000 population (2006 est.)