Afar

Afar is a landscape shaped by heat, distance, movement and scarcity, and the home of people whose lives are adapted to one of the most demanding environments on Earth. We introduce the landscape and the people together.

The Afar Triangle is one of the world’s most geologically active regions: the place where the Arabian plate and two African plates meet and pull apart, creating volcanoes, salt lakes, faults and hot springs across vast horizons.

But geology is only half the story. People live here, work here and raise families here, moving through this landscape with knowledge built over generations. For centuries, salt cut by hand in the Danakil was carried by camel to the highlands, and salt blocks called amole were used as money across Ethiopia. That is why we never present Afar as a collection of "extreme landscapes".