Ethiopia requires its residents to register their motor vehicles and display vehicle registration plates. Current plates feature Ge'ez text. ImageFirst issuedDesignSloganSerial formatSerials issuedNotes1950sAB 12345Addis Ababa1980-19894 A/B 12345Government owned vehicle2000s1 AB over 12345Addis Ababa2002-20261 AB 123456Addis Ababa2026-1 AB 123456Private
Italian Africa (1913-1941)
The very first Italian registration plates, from 1913 to the end of the 1920s, were rectangular, with a white background and with the name or initials of the colony in red followed by the registration number, on a single line, but the documentation on this is fragmentary. For the Italian colonial troops, however, special military service plates were used with the initials SOM (Somalia) or T (Tripolitania) in front. Subsequently, until 1935, the Italian colonies used white plates on black with a colonial code on the first line, and up to 5 numbers on the second line. The numbers, in relief, were assigned serially and the plates were made of metal, with the fasces as a seal. The colonial codes were:
ERITREA, later ER for Eritrea SOMALIA, later SOM for Somalia TRIPOLI for Tripolitania CNA for Cyrenaica
Between 1937 and 1941 there was an Italian governorate in Ethiopia and in those years a new type of Italian license plate was issued. They were exactly the same as the previous ones, but they had three squares on the left, colored top to bottom green, white and red, like the Italian flag, with the letters AOI (Africa Orientale Italiana) for Italian East Africa inside. The front plates resembled standard Italian front license plates, as these were smaller, and only sometimes had the colored squares like the rear license plates. The abbreviations used to indicate the origin are: AA for Addis Ababa AM for Amara ER for Eritrea OS for OROMO e Sidama HA for Harrar SC for Scioà SOM for Somalia
Diplomatic Plates On vehicles of the diplomatic corps, the coding also consists of two numbers, and another four numbers. The plates would be coloured black letters on a white background. The first two or three numbers indicate a country or organization as listed in the table below.
Diplomatic CodeCountry 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 132 References