Welcome to Mogadishu!
Mogadishu (Somali: Muqdisho, Arabic: مقديشو Maqadīshū) is the capital and most populous city in Somalia. It is home to the Somali National University and many other historical places.
Mogadishu (Somali: Muqdisho or Xamar Somali), locally known as Xamar or Hamar, is the capital city and most populous city of Somalia. The city has served as an important port connecting traders all around the Indian Ocean for millennia and has an estimated population of 2,388,000 (2021). Mogadishu is located in the coastal Banadir region on the Indian Ocean, which, unlike other Somali regions, is considered a municipality rather than a maamul goboleed (federal state). Mogadishu has a long history, which ranges from the ancient period up until the present, serving as the capital of the influential Sultanate of Mogadishu in the 9th-13th century, which for many centuries controlled the Indian Ocean gold trade, and eventually came under the Ajuran Empire in the 13th century which was an important player in the medieval Silk Road maritime trade. Mogadishu enjoyed the height of its prosperity during the 14th and 15th centuries and was during the early modern period considered the wealthiest city on the East African coast, as well as the center of thriving textile industry. In the 17th century, Mogadishu and parts of southern Somalia fell under the Hiraab Imamate, and in the 19th century came under the Geledi Sultanate's sphere of influence.
The onset of Italian colonialism occurred in incremental stages, with Italian treaties signed in the 1880s followed by economic engagement between various Somali clans and the Italian Benadir Company and then direct governance by the Italian government after 1906 and the British Military Administration of Somalia after World War Two and the UN Italian Trust Territory in the 1950s. This was followed by independence in 1960, the Hantiwadaag (socialist) era during Barre's presidency (1969-1991), a three-decade civil war afterward, and as of the late 2010s and 2020s a period of reconstruction.