Bahir Dar
Bahir Dar is the third largest city in Ethiopia, after Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa, and has a population of 201,450. It is the capital of the Amhara region, inhabited by the Amhara people, the country’s ethnically and geographically second largest group. The Ethiopian official language is Amharic. Bahir Dar is a clean and well-maintained
Gonder
Until the 16th century, the SolomonicEmperors of Ethiopia usually had no fixed capital town, but instead lived in tents in temporary royal camps as they moved around their realms while their family, bodyguard and retinue devoured surplus crops and cut down nearby trees for firewood. One exception to this rule was Debre Berhan, founded by
Axum
The original capital of the Kingdom of Aksum, it is one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in Africa. Axum was a naval and trading power that ruled the region from about 400 BCE into the 10th century. In 1980, UNESCO added Axum’s archaeological sites to its list of World Heritage Sites due to their
Lalibela
In a mountainous region in the heart of Ethiopia, some 645 km from Addis Ababa, eleven medieval monolithic churches were carved out of rock. Their building is attributed to King Lalibela who set out to construct in the 12th century a ‘New Jerusalem’, after Muslim conquests halted Christian pilgrimages to the holy Land.
