Harrar

526 Km east of the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa .

ትልቁን ካርታ መመልከት

about 50 km south east of diredawa ,the thrid largest city in Ethiopia
Generally , harrar is found in between teh great east African rift valley which extends from Syria to mozamibique including Ethiopia .

History :

there are no real evidences about harrar's early foundation but its known that harrar existed even before the 12th century A.D .

Harrar become prominent int eh 16th century because it was used as a base for the Muslim sultanate fighting against the christian highland kingdom

But soon after the end of the war , in the 1560's the Harrari were threatened of the expansionist oromo people . Inorder to protect themselves they built a formidable fences the encircled the city of harrar .
Because of hte strong offensive of the Oromos the base of the Muslim sultanate shifted from harrar to awssa in 1575 .

Neverhless, Harrar re-attained its position as the base of Muslims in 1647 .
In 1875 , the city was concord by the Egyptian imperialist army , the Egyptians ruled Harrar for ten years until a rebellion led emir Abdulahi over threw them .

In 1887, However , Harrar was invaded and Incorporated under Menlik II's kingdom , During this time many Muslims including the emir changed their religion to Christianity .

Harrar continued to prosper after the invasion , but its rate of development was minimised after diredawa took the market .
At present Harrar is the 11th largest city in Ethiopia .


Accessiblity : You can not directly access harrar from addis ababa both by air and Train.
But the near by Dire dawa has all the mentioned accesses because the city is more developed relative to harrar . Therefore , if you plan to get to harrar , you can travel to diredawa by domestic flight or a train from the bole international airport or the main train station respectively .
After arriving at dire dawa take a mini bus that takes you to harrar .
Another means to arrive at harrar is by taking a bus from Addis Ababa which runs directly to Harrar .