The Sultanate of Aussa was a kingdom that existed in the Afar Triangle in southern Eritrea, eastern Ethiopia and western Djibouti from the 18th to the 20th century. It was considered to be the leading monarchy of the Afar people, to whom the other Afar rulers nominally acknowledged primacy.
Throughout the region’s history the Afar were lauded as great warriors whose slaying was held in higher regard than that of the Oromos to the soldiers of the Kingdom of Shewa. The expanding Ethiopians laid claim to the region but were met with harsh resistance due to the Afar's skills in desert warfare and that the Abyssinians were a highlander people "unsuited by nature to operations in these hot and feverish lowlands - To subdue them would indeed prove no easy task, taking into consideration the waterless nature of their country away from the (Awash River) river, and the unhealthy conditions prevalent along its banks." Due to this, and more, the Danakil country managed to remain independent from the Khedivate of Egypt and autonomous within the later Ethiopian Empire, unlike other (similar) groups in the region and the previous Dankali Sultanate.
