Gondar
Gondar (less commonly spelled
Gonder) was the old imperial capital of
Ethiopia and the historic
Begemder province. As a result, the old province of Begemder is sometimes referred to as Gondar. Located in the
Semien Gondar Zone of the
Amhara Region, Gondar is north of
Lake Tana on the
Angereb River and southwest of the
Simien Mountains. The city has a longitude and latitude of .
Based on figures from the
Central Statistical Agency in 2005, Gondar has an estimated total population of 194,773 of whom 97,625 were males and 97,148 were females.
[CSA 2005 National Statistics, Table B.4] According to the 1994 national census, this city had 112,249 inhabitants.
Until the 16th century, the
Emperors of Ethiopia usually had no fixed capital, instead living 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
Zara Yaqob in
1456.
Beginning with Emperor
Minas in
1559, the rulers of Ethiopia began spend the
rainy season near
Lake Tana, often returning to the same location again and again. These encampments, which flourished as cities for a short time, include
Emfraz,
Ayba,
Gorgora, and
Dankaz.
Gondar was founded by Emperor
Fasilides around the year
1635, and grew as an
agricultural and
market town. There was a superstition at the time that the capital's name should begin with the letter 'G
w' (Gonder was originally spelt G
wander), which also contributed to Gorgora's (founded as G
warg
wara) growth in the centuries after 1600. Tradition also states that a buffalo led the Emperor Fasilides to a pool beside the Angereb, where an "old and venerable hermit" told the Emperor he would locate his capital there. Fasilides had the pool filled in and built his castle on that same site.
[Richard R.K. Pankhurst, History of Ethiopian Towns: From the Middle Ages to the Early Nineteenth Century (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1982), p. 117.] The emperor also built a total of seven churches; the first two, Fit Mikael and Fit Abbo, were built to end local
epidemics. The five emperors who followed him also built their palaces in the town.
In
1668, as a result of a church council, the Emperor
Yohannes I ordered that the inhabitants of Gondar be segregated by religion, the
Muslims move into their own quarter, the
Eslam Bet, within two years.
During the seventeenth century, the city's population is estimated to have exceeded 60,000. In 1678, the visiting
Armenian bishop Hovannes remarked that the city was "twice as big as
Istanbul".
[Pankhurst, p. 128.] Many of the buildings from this period survive, as the
eighteenth century was a time of turmoil and the city declined.
The town served as Ethiopia's capital until
Tewodros II moved the Imperial capital to
Magadala (having forcibly depopulated the city and destroyed much of the infrastructure) upon being crowned Emperor in
1855.
Abdallahi ibn Muhammad sacked Gondar when he invaded Ethiopia in 1887. Gondar was further developed under
Italian occupation; during the
Second World War, Italian forces made their last stand in Gondar in November 1941, after
Addis Ababa fell to
British forces in May.
As part of
Operation Tewodros near the end of the
Ethiopian Civil War, Gondar was captured by the
Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front in March
1991.
The modern city of Gondar is popular as a tourist attraction for its many picturesque ruins in the Royal Enclosure, from which the Emperors once reigned. Gondar is also a noted center of ecclesiastical learning in the
Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.
The most famous buildings in the city lie in the
seventeenth century Royal Enclosure, including
Fasilides castle,
Iyasu's Palace,
Dawit's Hall, a
banqueting hall,
stables,
Mentewab's Castle, a
chancellery,
library and three
churches. Near the city lie
Fasiladas' Bath, home to an annual ceremony where it is blessed and then opened for bathing; the
Qusquam complex, built by Empress
Mentewab; the
eighteenth century Ras Mikael Sehul's Palace and the
Debre Berhan Selassie Church.
Downtown Gondar shows the influence of the Italian occupation of the late 1930s. The main piazza features shops, a cinema, and other public buildings in a simplified Italian
Moderne style still distinctively of the period despite later changes and, frequently, neglect. Villas and flats in the nearby quarter that once housed occupation officials and colonists are also of interest.
The town is also home to an
airport (
ICAO code HAGN,
IATA GDQ), and
Gondar University which includes Ethiopia's main faculty of medicine.
As designated by
Sister Cities International, Gondar is a
sister city with
Corvallis, Oregon.
*
Ethiopian Treasures - Fasilados Castle, Felasha Village - Gonder*
Gondarlink charity
