My Latest - French Afars & Issas

Welcome, Gerard. Hope you stick around. There are lots of folks who collect world coins here.

Svslav: "Afars" and "Issas" are ethnic groups in the Horn of Africa region. The Afars are a northern Ethiopian tribe, while the Issas are a Somali clan. The French changed the name from "French Somaliland" in 1967, presumably in recognition of the fact that almost half the population were not "Somali". Though apparently the Gadabuursi, another Somali clan, were unimpressed at the special mention the Issas received in this choice of name.

Djibouti is named after it's capital city, which has gone by that name since it's founding in the late 1800s. The token-coins dating from 1921 listed in Krause with the name "Djibouti" on them are really post-WWI notgeld, issued in the name of the city, not the colony as a whole.

The etymology of "Djibouti" itself is uncertain but seems to be based on the Afar word for palm-fibre matting, which was presumably one of the main exports of the region back then.

French Somaliland and French Afars and Issas are both former names for the territory which is now known as Djibouti. The border never changed, just the name and/or system of government. In the older Krauses, all three were filed under Djibouti.

Personally, I class all three of them as "separate countries" on my OFEC list, and file them separately in the albums, in alphabetical order.