Djibouti Map with Regions

Djibouti has five regions, Ali Sabieh, Arta, Dikhil, Obock and Tadjourah, plus the City of Djibouti, which has the same rank, so sources that say six regions and sources that say five regions and one city describe the same set. The decentralization law of 7 July 2002 turned four of the five districts (Ali Sabieh, Dikhil, Obock and Tadjourah) into regions, made the Djibouti district a city at the same tier, and created Arta from parts of the Dikhil and Djibouti districts. A decree of 9 April 2003 fixed the boundaries. This map draws all six.

The capital of Djibouti is Djibouti, usually called Djibouti City. The country, its capital and one of its six units carry the same name, which causes most of the confusion. The City of Djibouti is a first-level unit ranked beside the five regions, not part of any of them, so a table of regional data needs it as a separate row. It sits on the Gulf of Tadjoura. On the map it is the small coastal unit east of Arta, and it carries the national-capital star.

Lake Assal is in the Tadjourah region, in central-western Djibouti at the western end of the Gulf of Tadjoura. It lies close to where Tadjourah meets Arta and Dikhil. It is the lowest point in Africa, about 155 meters below sea level. The map cuts the lake out of Tadjourah as a hole. Djibouti's other large lake, Lake Abbe, lies in Dikhil on the border with Ethiopia, which shares it, and the map cuts that out of Dikhil in the same way. Lakes Gemeri and Adobed, nearby, are in Ethiopia and are not part of any Djibouti region on this map.

The Ultimaps map labels four regional seats, Ali Sabieh, Dikhil, Obock and Tadjourah, plus the capital, since the City of Djibouti is its own capital. Arta's seat, the town of Arta, has no label, because the source data holds no point for it. Ali Sabieh and Tadjourah are spelled Ali Sabih and Tadjoura on the labels, which follow the source spelling rather than the region titles. Tables that join on region titles should use the titles, Ali Sabieh and Tadjourah, and not the label spellings, so the labels are the only place the source spellings show.

Dikhil is usually listed as the largest region of Djibouti, narrowly ahead of Tadjourah, though sources that measure the borders differently put the two in either order. Dikhil lies in the south-west along the Ethiopian border and includes Djibouti's share of Lake Abbe. Tadjourah stretches along the northern shore of the Gulf of Tadjoura, holds Lake Assal, and is the only region that touches both Ethiopia and Eritrea. Obock is the third largest, in the far north on the Eritrean border, and Ali Sabieh and Arta follow.

The smallest unit of Djibouti is the City of Djibouti, a coastal unit around the capital. The smallest of the five regions is Arta, which lies between the city and Ali Sabieh and Dikhil. Ali Sabieh is the next smallest. Arta is also the youngest region, created under the 2002 law. Population does not track area either, since Arta has more residents than the much larger Obock. Ali Sabieh, the next smallest region, has the most residents of the five.

The City of Djibouti is the most populous unit of Djibouti, with 767,250 residents in the 2024 census (INSTAD), about 72% of the national total of 1,066,809. Among the five regions, Ali Sabieh has the most residents, 76,414, followed by Dikhil with 66,196, Tadjourah with 60,645 and Arta with 48,922. Obock has the fewest in the country, 47,382. The five regions together hold the remaining 299,559 residents, and INSTAD published these as final results in November 2025, in the report of the third general census, whose count date was 20 May 2024.

Arta became a region of Djibouti under the decentralization law of 7 July 2002, which took parts of the Dikhil and Djibouti districts to form it. The decree of 9 April 2003 fixed its boundaries, and an arrêté of 2004 attached Damerjog to it. Some sources date Arta's start to 2003 or 2004, so the law and the decree are the dates to cite. A map that lacks Arta shows the division from before the reform and should not be used as a current one.

Start from this map in the Ultimaps editor, which is free and needs no account, and color the 6 units by your own figures or by hand. Add pins for places such as Tadjoura or Dikhil, then share or embed the result. The free export is a standard PNG with a small Ultimaps credit, while the Pro plan adds high-resolution PNG, SVG and PDF. To color from a table, give each unit a row named by its title or a code such as DJ-TA. List the City of Djibouti as its own row, and Djibouti City or Ville de Djibouti also match.