ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with specific position of small French territory which became the last continental colony in Sub-Saharan Africa. It focuses on economic, political, and ethnic environment of Djibouti in the time of high geopolitical tensions in Africa. The chapter deals with foreign interests and strategic position as well as economic importance of Djibouti, related mainly to the railway connecting the port with the Ethiopian interior. The decision to construct a railway connecting Ethiopia's interior with the Red Sea and Indian Ocean was of crucial importance in the process of economic development of Ethiopia as well as presence of European powers inside Ethiopia. For the French, connection between Djibouti and Addis Ababa had also one more important meaning, and that was Dire Dawa, the main station of the route, which served as kind of a "sanatorium for the French community in Djibouti, who migrated in large numbers during summer to avoid the torrid climate of their colony".
