Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country situated in the Horn of Africa that has been landlocked since the independence of its northern neighbor Eritrea in 1993. Apart from Eritrea to the north, Ethiopia is bordered by Sudan to the west, Kenya to the south, Djibouti to the northeast, and Somalia to the east. Ethiopia is one of the oldest nations in the world and Africa's third-most populous nation. It has yielded some of the oldest traces of humanity, making it an important area in the history of human evolution.