The present-day African country once called French Somaliland was Djibouti. French Somaliland was a French colonial possession in the Horn of Africa, centered on the strategic port of Djibouti at the entrance to the Gulf of Aden.
The territory was established during the late 19th-century expansion of the French colonial empire. It became a French overseas territory in 1946, after the Second World War. In 1967, France changed its name to the French Territory of the Afars and the Issas, reflecting the two principal communities emphasized in the territory's official identity.
The name change did not immediately create an independent state. Djibouti achieved independence from France on 27 June 1977, becoming the Republic of Djibouti. The country's location still gives it major strategic importance: its port and military facilities sit near the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, a vital route between the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.
A common mix-up is confusing French Somaliland with British Somaliland, which was part of the territory that became Somalia. Eritrea, by contrast, was mainly an Italian colony before later federation with Ethiopia and independence in 1993.