Menelik and the Foundation of Addis Ababa

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Abstract
Addis Ababa, today the most populous city on the eastern side of Africa between Cairo and Johannesburg, was founded by the Emperor Menelik II in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The event, which was important in modern Ethiopian history as a landmark in the reorganization and modernization of the State, is not without interest in the wider perspective of the African continent where it provides a unique example of rapid urban growth in an area not under European control. Whereas in such areas the capital was the result of an attempt to create a European type of city in a colonial environment, Addis Ababa represented an attempt by an African ruler to forge something new in his country's history by grafting modern institutions on a traditional living organism.

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