Addis Ababa

Addis Ababa is young by Ethiopian standards. Emperor Menelik II ruled from the Entoto ridge above the plain until 1886, when Empress Taytu Betul chose a site by the hot springs at Filwoha below and gave it the name Addis Ababa, "new flower". The court moved down, and a camp of huts and tents around the imperial compound became a town. Firewood ran short until fast-growing eucalyptus was planted along the streets under Menelik, which allowed the settlement to stay in one place; the railway from Djibouti reached the city in the 1910s, tying it to the sea.

Italian forces occupied Addis Ababa in 1936 and made it the capital of Italian East Africa. Five years of occupation left a road plan, the arcaded buildings of the Piazza, a taste for macchiato and pasta, and the market quarter that Italians moved to the west of the centre, which is still called the Merkato. Liberation came in 1941, and Haile Selassie returned; under him the city became a centre of African diplomacy, chosen in 1963 as the seat of the Organisation of African Unity, the African Union's predecessor.

The revolution of 1974 deposed the emperor, and the Derg's rule brought the killings known as the Red Terror to these streets before the regime fell in 1991. Since then the city has grown very fast, outwards across the plateau and upwards in glass towers, with a light railway opened in 2015 and, more recently, large redevelopment programmes that have widened roads and rebuilt parts of older neighbourhoods, drawing criticism over demolitions and displacement.

The capital gathers every people and language in the country, though Amharic is the common tongue of the street. Orthodox churches, mosques and Protestant halls stand close together, and the two great Orthodox festivals shape the year: the Meskel bonfire in the square that takes its name, and the Timkat processions in January, when tabots wrapped in cloth are carried out of the churches under umbrellas.

Addis Ababa made modern Ethiopian music. The brass-backed, pentatonic sound now known abroad as Ethio-jazz came out of the city's clubs and the Imperial Bodyguard band in the 1960s and early 1970s, through musicians such as Mulatu Astatke, and the recordings of that period were later collected and reissued for listeners outside the country. The older tradition of the azmari, travelling singers who improvise sharp, teasing verses to a one-stringed masenqo, continues in small bars called azmari bets.

Running is the city's other art. The thin air of the plateau and the forest tracks on Entoto have trained a long line of Olympic champions, and groups of runners on the roadsides at dawn are part of the ordinary look of the place. Coffee frames social life: beans roasted over charcoal, the room filled with incense, three rounds poured from a clay jebena, and an unhurried conversation expected alongside.

An estimated 6.3 million people lived in Addis Ababa in 2025, and the wider urban area keeps growing as people arrive from the countryside. It produces a large share of Ethiopia's economic output, as the seat of government, the base of Ethiopian Airlines, the centre of banking and trade, and the diplomatic capital of the continent, with the African Union, the UN Economic Commission for Africa and a long list of embassies and aid agencies.

Housing runs from walled villas and new apartment towers to condominium blocks built by government lotteries and the older neighbourhoods of single-storey corrugated-iron houses along narrow lanes. Recent redevelopment programmes have rebuilt main roads with wide pavements, lighting and plazas, and have also cleared buildings and displaced residents along the routes, which has made them one of the most discussed subjects in the city.

The day starts early, with runners and church-goers out before dawn and offices opening by half past eight. Minibus ranks are crowded at both ends of the day, and the afternoon slows for coffee. Inflation and rents are the persistent complaints, along with the traffic and the water and power cuts that come with fast growth. The city's own calendar runs seven to eight years behind the Gregorian one, and the clock is counted from sunrise, so midday is six o'clock.

The shared platter is the centre of eating here: injera, the wide sour pancake of fermented teff, spread with stews. Doro wat, chicken and hard-boiled egg simmered in berbere and onion, is the celebration dish; key wat is its beef version; tibs are cubes of meat sautéed with onion, rosemary and chilli, sometimes brought to the table still sizzling on a clay brazier. Kitfo, the Gurage dish of minced beef warmed in spiced butter with mitmita, is an Addis Ababa speciality, served raw, lightly cooked or fully cooked with ayib cheese and gomen greens.

On the many Orthodox fasting days the food is entirely plant-based, and every eating house puts out beyaynetu, a platter of small mounds — shiro, the chickpea purée; misir, red lentils; split peas; cabbage, beetroot and greens — arranged on injera. Firfir, injera torn and tossed in sauce, is the standard breakfast, alongside ful, spiced broad beans eaten with bread, which arrived with the city's Yemeni and Sudanese traders.

Drinks divide between the traditional and the Italian. Tej, honey wine fermented with gesho, is poured in berele flasks in tej bets; tella is the home-brewed barley beer; bottled lagers are widely sold. The Piazza's coffee bars serve macchiato in small glasses, while at home and in most restaurants the coffee ceremony is the proper form, green beans roasted, ground and brewed three times over.