Region, eastern Ethiopia.
In the triangular wedge that juts into Somalia, it is a dry, barren plain sparsely populated by Somali-speaking nomadic pastoralists. Conquered in the late 19th century by the Ethiopian emperor Menilek II , it was invaded by Italy in 1935 and made part of Italian East Africa. Liberated in 1941, it remained under British administration until 1948. It was invaded by Somalia in 1977 and retaken by Ethiopia in 1978, with help from Cuba and the Soviet Union.