Ethiopians in Washington, D.C.

[1] Ethiopians began settling Washington, D.C. after the Derg overthrew Emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie in 1974.

[2] The author added that at that time, the Ethiopian area in Alexandria, Virginia had a higher concentration of Ethiopians compared to the one in Washington, D.C.[6] In 2004 the Mayor of Washington, D.C. signed the DC Language Access Act, which provided government services in five non-English languages including Amharic.

"[5] Washington 101: An Introduction to the Nation's Capital states that "One common estimate is that 200,000 Ethiopians reside in the D.C. metropolitan area.

[9] Little Ethiopia, a Business and Cultural Community in and sub-division of the Shaw neighborhood of Washington, D.C., located around 9th and U Street Northwest.

[10][11][12] Since the 1980s, Ethiopian-born business owners have been purchasing property in the neighborhood of Shaw, specifically Thirteenth and Ninth Streets.

[15] Washington, D.C. communities with ethnic Ethiopian residents include Adams Morgan, Brightwood, and Columbia Heights.

Within Fairfax County, Ethiopian communities are present in areas such as Annandale, Springfield, and Vienna.

In the latter, the communities are Greenbelt, Clinton, District Heights, Fort Washington, Oxon Hill, and Upper Marlboro.

[15] The Ethiopian Community Center, Inc. (ECC, Amharic: የኢትዮጵያ ሕብረተሰብ ማዕከል[18]), headquartered in Washington, D.C., was established in 1980.

Ethiocorps, an organization which recruits area Ethiopian Americans to volunteer in Ethiopia, was established in 2004.

[3] In addition as of 2013 there are about 25 doctors of Ethiopian and Eritrean background in the Baltimore-Washington area, as well as Ethiopian-owned travel agencies, taxi companies, and parking garages.

[22] The Ethiopian Yellow Pages (Amharic: የኢትዮጵያ የሎው ፔጅስ[23]) is published in Alexandria, Virginia,[20] and the headquarters of the publication is in Shaw, Washington, D.C.

[3] The novel The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu is about an Ethiopian who moved to Washington, D.C. to get political asylum.