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Addis Ababa

Capital and largest city of Ethiopia

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The capital city of Addis Ababa
Abshewaga · CC BY-SA 4.0

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The founding history of Addis Ababa dates back to the late 19th century by Menelik II, Negus of Shewa, in 1886 after finding Mount Entoto unpleasant two years prior. At the time, the city was a resort town; its large mineral spring abundance attracted nobilities of the empire and led them to establish permanent settlement. It also attracted many members of the working classes – including artisans and merchants – and foreign visitors. Menelik II then formed his imperial palace in 1887. Addis Ababa became the empire's capital in 1889, and subsequently international embassies were opened. Urban development began with the 20th century, without any prior planning.

Addis Ababa saw a wide-scale economic boom in 1926 and 1927, and an increase in the number of buildings owned by the middle class, including stone houses filled with imported European furniture. The middle class also imported newly manufactured automobiles and expanded banking institutions. During the Italian occupation, urbanization and modernization steadily increased through a masterplan; it was hoped Addis Ababa would be a more "colonial" city, and this continued after the occupation. Subsequent master plans were designed by French and British consultants from the 1940s onwards, focusing on monuments, civic structures, satellite cities and the inner-city. Similarly, the later Italo-Ethiopian masterplan (also projected in 1986) concerned only urban structures and accommodation services, but was later adapted for the 2003 masterplan.

Addis Ababa is a federally-chartered city in accordance with the Addis Ababa City Government Charter Proclamation No. 87/1997 in the FDRE Constitution. Called "the political capital of Africa" due to its historical, diplomatic, and political significance for the continent, Addis Ababa serves as the headquarters of major international organizations, such as the African Union and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.

The city lies a few kilometres west of the East African Rift, which splits Ethiopia into two, between the Nubian plate and the Somali plate. The city is surrounded by the Special Zone of Oromia, and is populated by people from different regions of Ethiopia. It is home to Addis Ababa University. The city has a high human development index, and is known for its vibrant culture, strong fashion scene, high civic and political involvement of younger people, a thriving arts scene, and for being the heart of a country with one of the fastest economic growth rates in the world.

History

Prehistory

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.

Middle Ages

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. Described a "metropolis", Barara is estimated to have had a population exceeding 160,000 people, comparable to the largest European towns in 1500 CE, Paris and Naples.

Pre-foundation inhabitants

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 16th century their territory ran along the left bank of the Abbay river from the Wäläqa river in northern Shewa southward to the headwaters of the Awash River. The region of Éndägäbtän, which covers the area around the Awash source, was their domain from at least the 14th century. The Gafat comprised numerous subgroups, among them the Abädray, Ašmän, Šat, and Wänge, but never developed shared political institutions across these groups, which enabled the Christian monarchs to deal with them separately. From the late 16th century, Oromo groups moving northward through the region drove the local Gafat population across the Abbay into Gojjam. Those who remained were absorbed into the Oromo population. The Éndägäbtän territory later became part of the Männagäsha Awrajja in the pre-1974 administrative system, lying west of present-day Addis Ababa.

Foundation

Founding

In 1886, settlement began in the valley south of the mountain in a place called Finfinne, a name which refers to the presence of hot springs. The site was chosen by Empress Taytu Betul. Initially, she built a house for herself near the "Filwuha" hot mineral springs, where she and members of the Shewan Royal Court liked to take mineral baths. Empress Taytu persuaded Emperor Menelik II to move the capital from cold and windy Entoto to the plains below and named the new city Addis Ababa. By the next year large plots of land (Amharic: ሰፈር , sefer) had been allocated to the major nobility, other important personages and some churches. The local Oromo tribes had their lands confiscated and many were displaced. The city was originally founded as a katama (royal camp), with the sefer laid out mirroring an army on the march. The lands of Fitawrari Habte Giyorgis were furthest to the west, while the Imperial Palace of Menelik was in the centre, bracketed on each side by the leaders of the left (Qeñazmach) and right (Grazmach) wings of the army. The rear or area to the east of the palace was allocated to a Dejazmach or another prominent noble. Many of these original lands can still be traced back to the original military grants. Each sefer continued to be settled by each noble's retainers and slaves, usually brought from the lands he controlled. Among those ethnic groups, the Amhara, the Oromo, the Gurage, the Dorze and the Tigrayans would come in the largest numbers. The town grew by leaps and bounds. Not only for nobles, but also the site attracted numerous working classes including artisans, merchants, and foreign visitors.

Early residential dwelling was typically made of circular huts; walls were constructed with mud (Amharic: ጭቃ, cheka) and straw plastered on a wooden frame and thatched roofs. Addis Ababa's growth rate began with early rapid urbanization without preplanned intention. This was the time where nobilities embarked on concentrated permanent settlement, and altered by social patterns; i.e. each neighborhoods (sefer) was located on higher grounds, noncontiguous from adjacent settlements. The early social milieu contributed the contemporary admixture of a classic neighborhood. One of Emperor Menelik's contributions that are still visible today is the planting of numerous eucalyptus trees along the city streets.

Moreover, the city held strong social organization patterns prior to the Italian invasion. According to Richard Pankhurst (1968), the city's accelerated population growth was due to factors of provisional governors and their troops, the 1892 famine, and eventually the Battle of Adwa. Another includes the 1907 land act, municipal administration in 1909, and a railway and modernized transportation system boom beginning in the 20th century, culminating in continual growth. Additional supplements, for example the laying of Ethio-Djibouti Railways and topographical factors further led the city's boundary to expand southward.

20th century

Pre-Italian occupation (1916–1935)

Gebrehiwot Baykedagn took major administrative division post, and Addis Ababa–Djibouti railways in 1916, which also connects Addis Ababa with French Somaliland port of Djibouti. Ras Tafari Mekonnen, later became Emperor Haile Selassie I was the most powerful figure in the city following his appointment in 1917. He transformed the city by recognizing the importance of modernization and urbanization, and he distributed wealth to support emerging class. From this point, Ras Tafari gained a legitimate power as regency council in 1918.

By 1926 and 1927, a large-scale economic revolution occurred, a surplus of coffee production began growing as a result of capital accumulation. Profiting from this wealth, the bourgeoisie benefited the city by constructing new, stone-fitted houses with imported European furniture and an importation of the latest automobiles, and expansion of banks across the locales. The total register of automobiles were 76 in 1926 and went to 578 in 1930. The first popular road transportation opened between Addis Ababa and Djibouti, about 156 km (97 mi) northward in the direction of Dessie. Initially intended to connect Italian occupied Assab with Addis Ababa in the Italo-Ethiopian Treaty of 1928, the road was considered for motor vehicle travel. The highway was important to the French railway of Djibouti and freight rate was very high with a lack of competition, and increase of cargo between Ethiopia and Assab.

In 1930, the Emperor was crowned and proceeded with new technologies and building infrastructure. Among them, he installed power lines and telephones, and erected several monuments (such as Meyazia 27 Square).

Italian occupation (1936–1941)

Following all the major engagements of their invasion, the Italian troops from the colony of Eritrea entered Addis Ababa on 5 May 1936. Along with Dire Dawa, the city had been spared the aerial bombardment (including the use of chemical weapons such as mustard gas) practiced elsewhere in Ethiopia. This also allowed its railway to Djibouti to remain intact. After the occupation, the city served as the Duke of Aosta's capital for unified Italian East Africa until 1941, when it was abandoned in favour of Amba Alagi and other redoubts during the Second World War's East African Campaign. According to Soviet estimates, 15,000 Ethiopians casualties were victims of chemical weapons, especially by sulfur mustard.

The Italian ambition regarding Addis Ababa was to create a beautified colonial capital city along with a new master plan launched by seven architects such as Marcello Piacentini, Alessandro Bianchi, Enrico Del Debbio, Giuseppe Vaccaro, Le Corbusier, Ignazio Guidi and Cesare Valle. Despite contradictory and different ideas for each other, the plan was intended to focus on the general architectural plan of the city. Two preparations were approved from the master plan: the Le Corbusier and Guidi and Valle. During an invitation to Mussolini, the French Swiss architect Le Corbusier illustrated the master plan in a guideline sketch involving a traversing route monumental structure by a grand boulevard across the city from north to south, as he extracted from his 1930–1933 Radiant City concept. His two counterparts, Guildi and Valle prepared the master plan in summer 1936 likely emphasizing fascist ideology with monumental structure and no native Ethiopian participation in designing sector. Two parallel axis were drawn in European character connecting Arada/Giyorgis with the railway station to the south end five kilometres long and varied width spanning from 40 to 90 meters.

On 5 May 1941, the city was liberated by Major Orde Wingate and Emperor Haile Selassie for Ethiopian Gideon Force and Ethiopian resistance in time to permit Emperor Haile Selassie's return on 5 May 1941, five years to the day after he had left.

Post-Italian occupation (1941–1974)

In the aftermath, Addis Ababa suffered from economic stagnation and rapid population growth, the inner-city affected by urban morphology initiated by Italian occupation and the peripheral area were in urban sprawl. In 1946, Haile Selassie invited famous British master planner Sir Patrick Abercrombie with goals of modelling and beautifying the city to become the capital for Africa. By this organizing model, Abercrombie launched the master plan with neighborhood units surrounded by green parkways, and he was encouraged to draw ring roads characterized by radial shapes to channel traffic pathway from the central area.

His careful master plan of a major traffic route was completed by segregating neighborhood units, as he extracted from his 1943 London traffic problem. In 1959, the British consultant team named Bolton Hennessy and Partners commissioned an improvement of Abercrombie's 1954–1956 satellite towns. From the place, they did not incorporated outer area like Mekenissa and West of the old Air Port in the proposal, while Rapi, Gefersa, Kaliti and Kotebe proposed as outlet of Jimma, Ambo and Dessie respectively (the four regional highways). The Hennessy and Partners illustration would be physically larger to current size of Addis Ababa with surrounded satellite towns. In 1965, the French Mission for Urban Studies and Habitat led by Luis De Marien launched another master plan responsible to create monumental axis through Addis Ababa City Hall with an extension across Gofa Mazoria in the southern part of the city. Marien's difference to the previous Italian master plan was the use of single monumental axis while they used the double one.

Haile Selassie also helped to form the Organisation of African Unity in 1963, which was later dissolved in 2002 and replaced by the African Union (AU), which is also headquartered in the city, airports and industrial parks. The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa founded in 1958, also has its headquarters in Addis Ababa. Addis Ababa was also the site of the Council of the Oriental Orthodox Churches in 1965. Pankhurst (1962) noted in a survey of total land of 212 square kilometres, 58% owned by 1,768, owing to 10,000 square meters, and 12% were given to church whereas other small areas were still acquired in the name of posthumous nobilities such as Dejazemach Wube Haile Mariam, Fitawrari Aba Koran, and a bridge named "Fitawrari Habtegiorgis" after Habte Giyorgis Dinagde. According to the 1965 master plan, the city covered an area of 21,000 hectares and would increase to 51,000 hectares by 1984 master plan.

In 1965, the first student march took place in response to the feudal imperial government of Haile Selassie, in which they chanted "Land for the Tiller", culminating in a Marxist–Leninist movement in Ethiopia. In addition, the 1973 oil crisis heavily impacted the city. 1,500 peasants in Addis Ababa marched to plead for food to be returned by police, and intellectual from Addis Ababa University forced the government to take a measure against the spreading famine, a report which Haile Selassie government denounced as "fabrication". Haile Selassie responded later "rich and poor have always existed and will, Why? Because there are those that work...and those that prefer to do nothing...Each individual is responsible for his misfortunes, his fate." Students around the city gathered to protest in February 1974; eventually Haile Selassie was successfully deposed from office in 1974 by a group of police officers. Later, the group named themselves Derg, officially "Provisional Military Administrative Council" (PMAC). The city had only 10 woredas.

The Derg administration (1974–1991)

After the Derg came to power, roughly two-third of housing stock transferred to rental housing. The population growth declined from 6.5% to 3.7%. In 1975, the Derg nationalized "extra" rental structures built by private stockholders. As a result, the Proclamationon No. 47/1975 issued weakened buildings with small amount of living was administered by kebele units, while rental houses with large quality fell under Agency for Rental Housing Administration (ARHA). If those rental properties value less than 100 birr (US$48.31), they would be put under kebele administration. The administrative divisions showed an increase of woredas to 25 and 284 kebeles.

Hungarian architect C.K. Polonyi was the first person to embark the city's master plan during the Derg period with assistance of the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing. He used two formula concentrating an integration Addis Ababa with suburbs of rural areas and developing inner-city. Polonyi also worked to redesign Meskel Square, which was renamed Abiyot Square by the time, implemented immediately after the name change.

In 1986, the Italo-Ethiopian master plan was set up by 45 Ethiopian professionals along with 75 Italian experts with 207 sectorial reports documented as references. The plan dealt with a balanced urban system and services in urban area such as water supply. Akaki incorporated to Addis Ababa to supply industrial and freight terminal services. The bureaucratic rule of the Derg postponed the master plan for eight years until 1994, which caused failure of basic issues in public service and unplanned development.

Federal Democratic Republic (since 1991)

On 28 May 1991, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), a coalition party in course of overthrowing the Derg, seized Addis Ababa. They entered Menelik II Avenue and ordered a curfew for 24 hours. According to a witness, residents of Addis Ababa were ignorant and not terrified by the event, as the military told them everything was safe. The military went to central locations of the city (such as Hilton Hotel) and displayed banners "Peace, Solidarity, Friendship". At 5:30 am, they took control of the presidential palace and large-scale tanks were seen entering the area.

A new constitution was adapted in 1994 and enacted a year later; while all cities in Ethiopia accountable rule by regional authority, Addis Ababa (Proclamation No 87/1997) and Dire Dawa (Proclamation No 416/2004) remained chartered cities, with mandates for self-governing and developmental centres. The Proclamation No. 112/1995 legitimized privatization of many government buildings, with a few exceptions, and the kebele buildings remained in tenure. The kebele dwelling and their largely unplanned settings continued to incorporated core areas of Addis Ababa.

21st century

From the end of 1998, new project was launched by Addis Ababa City Administration naming Office for Revision of Addis Ababa Master Plan (ORAAMP), covering from 1999 to 2003. The plan goal was to meet the standard of market economy with favourable political system resembles the revised 1986 master plan in terms of urban area.

2014 Addis Ababa Master Plan

A controversial plan to expand the boundaries of Addis Ababa, by 1.1 million hectares into the Oromia special zone in April 2014, sparked the Oromo protests on 25 April 2014 against expansion of the boundaries of Addis Ababa. The government responded by shooting at and beating peaceful protesters. This escalated to full blown strikes and street protests on 12 November 2015 by university students in Ginchi town, located 80 km southwest of Addis Ababa city, encircled by Oromia Region. The controversial master plan was cancelled on 12 January 2016. By that time, 140 protesters were killed.

Recent history

United Nations Population Projections estimated the population of metro area of Addis Ababa to be 5,228,000 in 2022, a 4.43% increase from 2021. During Abiy Ahmed's premiership, Addis Ababa and its vicinities underwent Beautifying Sheger. This project is aimed to enhance the green coverage and beauty of the city. In 2018, Abiy initiated a project called "Riverside" planned to expand riverbanks for 56 kilometres (35 mi), from the Entoto Mountains to the Akaki River. In October 2022, the government launched Sheger City, an urban development model that contains 12 sub-cities, 36 districts and 40 rural kebeles with its seat located in Saris area in Addis Ababa. The project objective was to feed other satellite cities into Addis Ababa and contribute economic development within enclave. Several human rights groups as well as politicians criticized the process to build Sheger City due to inciting mass house demolitions that belonged to non-Oromo ethnic group, regional disparity by violating the constitutional rights of Oromo people.

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