Somaliland

People have lived in these uplands for thousands of years, as the painted cattle of Laas Geel show. In the Middle Ages the port of Zeila, in today's Awdal, was a great Muslim trading town of the Gulf of Aden and the capital of states that ruled inland as far as Harar; Berbera traded livestock, hides and incense with Arabia and India, and its annual trading season drew caravans from the interior.

Britain made the coast a protectorate in the 1880s, mainly to supply meat to its base at Aden, and governed lightly through clan elders. Its authority was challenged for twenty years by the Dervish movement of Sayyid Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, whose forts stood at Taleh in the Sool plateau until a British air and ground campaign ended the rising in 1920. British Somaliland became independent on 26 June 1960 and joined former Italian Somalia five days later to form the Somali Republic.

Many northerners soon felt sidelined in the union. Under Siad Barre, the Somali National Movement, drawing largely on the Isaaq clans, fought a guerrilla war from the 1980s, and in 1988 government forces bombed Hargeisa and Burao, destroying much of both cities and killing tens of thousands of civilians. After Barre fell, a conference at Burao declared the Republic of Somaliland on 18 May 1991. Somaliland has since built its own government, currency, army and elections, with several peaceful transfers of power. Somalia regards it as part of its territory. Somaliland is a partially recognised state: in December 2025 Israel became the first and only UN member state to formally recognise it, and it keeps offices abroad and ties with neighbours such as Ethiopia. Its eastern districts, whose clans largely favour union with Somalia, are also claimed by Puntland; after fighting around Las Anod in 2023 between Somaliland's army and local unionist forces, Somaliland lost control of much of the east to the SSC-Khatumo administration.

Society here is Somali, Sunni Muslim and organised by clan, with the Isaaq the largest group and the Gadabuursi, Issa, Dhulbahante and Warsangeli in the west and east; which clans support independence and which favour union with Somalia shapes the region's politics. Elders' councils play a formal role: the Guurti, the upper house of Somaliland's parliament, grew out of clan elders' peace conferences.

Poetry and song carry prestige. Hargeisa played a leading part in modern Somali music, and its annual Hargeisa International Book Fair, running since 2008, draws writers and readers from across the Somali world. English is more widely used in schools and government than in the south, reflecting the British past, alongside Somali and Arabic.

Life follows the Islamic calendar, and dress is conservative, with most women wearing long robes and headscarves. Hospitality is expected, tea is offered at every visit, and in the afternoons many men gather to chew khat, brought in daily from Ethiopia.

Hargeisa, with an estimated population of more than a million people, is the capital and commercial centre, a city of new concrete buildings, currency-changers' stacks of notes on the pavements and a large livestock market. Burao, the capital of Togdheer, is the second city and a major livestock trading town; Berbera, Borama, Erigavo and Las Anod are the other main centres.

The economy rests on livestock exported to the Arabian Peninsula through Berbera, on remittances from a large diaspora in Britain, the Gulf and elsewhere, and on trade with Ethiopia. The expansion of Berbera port by DP World, with a road corridor towards Ethiopia, is a major foreign investment. Mobile money is used for almost every purchase, even in markets.

Lack of recognition makes international loans, banking and travel harder, youth unemployment is high and many young people try to migrate. Recurrent drought hits herders hard, and relations with Mogadishu, the east's contested districts and Ethiopia's search for sea access dominate politics.

Breakfast is canjeero, or laxoox, a spongy fermented flatbread eaten with ghee and sugar or with liver and onions, alongside tea boiled with cardamom and cloves. Lunch is the main meal: rice or pasta with goat or camel meat, often served with a banana, and in Hargeisa's restaurants camel meat is a local speciality.

Camel milk, fresh or soured, is sold at the markets and drunk throughout the day. In Berbera and along the coast, grilled fish from the Gulf of Aden is common, and sambuusa, fried triangular pastries filled with meat, are the evening snack in Ramadan. Xalwo, the dense sweet of sugar, ghee and spices, is served at weddings and on Eid.

The Sanaag highlands produce frankincense and myrrh from wild trees, harvested for export as they have been for centuries. No alcohol is sold.

Hargeisa's sights are modest: the MiG jet mounted as a war memorial in the city centre, the livestock market, the central mosque and the lively Waheen market. The great attraction lies outside the city at Laas Geel, where rock shelters on a granite outcrop are covered with paintings of decorated cattle and other animals, documented by archaeologists in 2002.

North-east of Hargeisa, Berbera has an old waterfront quarter and long beaches such as Batalaale. From Berbera the road climbs the escarpment of the Golis Mountains to Sheikh, a cooler highland town known for its British-era secondary school, before descending to Burao.

In the far east, Erigavo is the gateway to the Daallo forest, a belt of juniper on the escarpment of the Cal Madow range, which rises to Shimbiris, the highest peak in Somalia; the cliffs drop towards the Gulf of Aden coast. In the far west the ruins of old Zeila stand on the coast near the Djibouti border.