Addis Ababa

Sister cities

• Chuncheon
• Beersheba
• Johannesburg
• Tel Aviv
• Washington, D.C.
• San Francisco
• Chongqing
• Leipzig
• Khartoum
• Beijing
• Saint Petersburg
• Kaunas

History

A study based on DNA evidence from almost 1,000 people around the world suggests that early humans first travelled out of Africa via a place close to Addis Ababa, spreading from the region to the rest of the planet some time around 100,000 years ago. The research indicated that genetic diversity decreases steadily the further one's ancestors travelled from Addis Ababa. Mount Entoto, a high tableland to the north of current Addis Ababa, is one of a handful of sites put forward as a possible location for a medieval imperial capital known as Barara. This permanent fortified city was established during the early to mid-15th century and it served as the main residence of several successive emperors up to the early 16th-century reign of Libne Dengel. The city was depicted standing between Mount Zuqualla and Menegasha on a map drawn by the Italian cartographer Fra Mauro in around 1450, and it was razed and plundered by Ahmad ibn Ibrahim while the imperial army was trapped on the south of the Awash River in 1529, an event witnessed and documented two years later by the Yemeni writer Arab-Faqih. The suggestion that Barara was located on Mount Entoto is supported by the very recent discovery of a large medieval town overlooking Addis Ababa located between rock-hewn Washa Mikael and the more modern church of Entoto Maryam, founded in the late 19th century. Dubbed the Pentagon, the 30-hectare site incorporates a castle with 12 towers, along with 520 meters of stone walls measuring up to 5-meter high. comparable to the largest European towns in 1500 CE, Paris and Naples. The area that became Addis Ababa was inhabited by the Gafat people in the centuries before the city's foundation. The Gafat spoke a South Ethio-Semitic language distinct from both Amharic and Oromo, and by the…

Geography

Addis Ababa lies in the Ethiopian Highlands, bordering the western edge of the Great Rift Valley, at an elevation of in what was a grassland. The city lies at the foot of Mount Entoto and forms part of the watershed for the Awash. From its lowest point, around Bole International Airport, at above sea level in the southern periphery, Addis Ababa rises to over in the Entoto Mountains to the north. The city is divided into 10 boroughs, called subcities (, kifle ketema), and 99 wards (, kebele). The 10 subcities are: {| class="wikitable sortable" |- ! style="width:10px;"| Nr ! style="width:120px;"| Subcity ! style="width:50px;"| Area (km2) ! style="width:70px;"| Population ! style="width:50px;"| Density ! style="width:40px;"| Map |- | style="text-align:right;" | 1 |Addis Ketema | style="text-align:right;" | 7.41 | style="text-align:right;" | 271,644 | style="text-align:right;" | 36,659.1 | style="text-align:right;" | |- | style="text-align:right;" | 2 |Akaky Kaliti | style="text-align:right;" | 118.08 | style="text-align:right;" | 195,273 | style="text-align:right;" | 1,653.7 | style="text-align:right;" | |- | style="text-align:right;" | 3 |Arada | style="text-align:right;" | 9.91 | style="text-align:right;" | 225,999 | style="text-align:right;" | 23,000 | style="text-align:right;" | |- | style="text-align:right;" | 4 |Bole | style="text-align:right;" | 122.08 | style="text-align:right;" | 328,900 | style="text-align:right;" | 2,694.1 | style="text-align:right;" | |- | style="text-align:right;" | 5 |Gullele | style="text-align:right;" | 30.18 | style="text-align:right;" | 284,865 | style="text-align:right;" | 9,438.9 | style="text-align:right;" | |- | style="text-align:right;" | 6 |Kirkos | style="text-align:right;" | 14.62 | style="text-align:right;" | 235,441 |…

Most-observed species

• Pied Crow

  Corvus albus Statius Muller, 1776 · Aves
  1,216
• Black Kite

  Milvus migrans (Boddaert, 1783) · Aves
  965
• Brown-rumped Seedeater

  Crithagra tristriata (Rüppell, 1840) · Aves
  871
• Dusky Turtle-Dove

  Streptopelia lugens (Rüppell, 1837) · Aves
  856
• Tacazze Sunbird

  Nectarinia tacazze (Stanley, 1814) · Aves
  767
• Swainson's Sparrow

  Passer swainsonii (Rüppell, 1840) · Aves
  756
• Baglafecht Weaver

  Ploceus baglafecht (Daudin, 1802) · Aves
  749
• Abyssinian Thrush

  Turdus abyssinicus Gmelin, 1789 · Aves
  746

Most recent

• M 4.2 — 2025-01-23
  33 km W of Metahāra, Ethiopia
• M 4.4 — 2025-01-23
  12 km WSW of Debre Birhan, Ethiopia
• M 4.1 — 2025-01-18
  42 km W of Metahāra, Ethiopia
• M 4.4 — 2025-01-17
  40 km WNW of Metahāra, Ethiopia
• M 4.3 — 2025-01-01
  32 km WSW of Metahāra, Ethiopia
• M 4 — 2021-05-15
  45 km NW of Metah?ra, Ethiopia