Top 10 Largest Cities or Towns of Somalia
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1.
Mogadishu
2.
Hargeisa
3.
Bosaso
4.
Galkayo
5.
Berbera
6.
Merca
7.
Jamame
8.
Kismayo
9. Baidoa
10.
Burao
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Somalia, is a country located in the
Horn of Africa. It is bordered by
Ethiopia to the west,
Djibouti to the northwest, the
Gulf of Aden to the north, the
Indian Ocean to the east, and
Kenya to the southwest. Somalia has the longest coastline on the continent's mainland, and its terrain consists mainly of plateaus, plains and highlands. Climatically, hot conditions prevail year-round, with periodic monsoon winds and irregular rainfall.
Somalia has a population of around
10 million.
Around 85% of residents are ethnic
Somalis, who have historically inhabited the northern part of the country.
Ethnic minorities make up the remainder and are largely concentrated in the southern regions. The official languages of Somalia are
Somali and
Arabic, both of which belong to the Afro-Asiatic family. Most people in the country are Muslim, with the majority being
Sunni.
In antiquity, Somalia was an important commercial centre, and is among the most probable locations of the fabled ancient
Land of Punt. During the
Middle Ages, several powerful Somali empires dominated the regional trade, including the
Ajuran Empire, the
Adal Sultanate, the
Warsangali Sultanate, and the
Geledi Sultanate. In the late
19th century, through a succession of treaties with these kingdoms, the
British and
Italians gained control of parts of the coast and established the colonies of
British Somaliland and
Italian Somaliland. In the interior,
Muhammad Abdullah Hassan's
Dervish State successfully repelled the
British Empire four times and forced it to retreat to the coastal region. The Dervishes were finally defeated in
1920 by British airpower.
Italy acquired full control of the northeastern and southern parts of the area after successfully waging the so-called
Campaign of the Sultanates against the ruling
Majeerteen Sultanate and
Sultanate of Hobyo.
Italian occupation lasted until
1941, yielding to
British military administration.
Northern Somalia would remain a protectorate, while southern Somalia became a
United Nations Trusteeship in 1949. In 1960, the two regions united to form the independent
Somali Republic under a civilian government.
Mohamed Siad Barre seized power in
1969 and established the
Somali Democratic Republic. In
1991,
Barre's government collapsed as the
Somali Civil War broke out
.
In the absence of a central government, Somalia's residents reverted to local forms of conflict resolution. A few autonomous regions, including the
Somaliland,
Puntland and
Galmudug administrations, emerged in the north in the ensuing process of decentralization. The early
2000s saw the creation of fledgling interim federal administrations. The
Transitional National Government (
TNG) was established in
2000, followed by the formation of the
Transitional Federal Government (
TFG) in 2004, which reestablished national institutions such as the military. In
2006, the TFG, assisted by
Ethiopian troops, assumed control of most of the nation's southern conflict zones from the newly formed
Islamic Courts Union (
ICU). The ICU subsequently splintered into more radical groups such as Al-Shabaab, which battled the TFG and its
AMISOM allies for control of the region, with the insurgents losing most of the territory that they had seized by mid-2012. In
2011–
2012, a political process providing benchmarks for the establishment of permanent democratic institutions was launched.[23]
Within this administrative framework a new provisional constitution was passed in
August 2012 which reformed Somalia as a federation.
Following the end of the TFG's interim mandate the same month, the
Federal Government of Somalia, the first permanent central government in the country since the start of the civil war, was formed. The nation has concurrently experienced a period of intense reconstruction, particularly in the capital, Mogadishu. Through the years, Somalia has maintained an informal economy, based mainly on livestock, remittances, and telecommunications.
Somalia has been inhabited since at least the Paleolithic. During the
Stone Age, the Doian and Hargeisan cultures flourished here. The oldest evidence of burial customs in the Horn of Africa comes from cemeteries in Somalia dating back to the
4th millennium BCE. The stone implements from the Jalelo site in the north were also characterized in
1909 as important artefacts demonstrating the archaeological universality during the Paleolithic between the
East and the
West.
According to linguists, the first Afro-Asiatic-speaking populations arrived in the region during the ensuing
Neolithic period from the family's proposed urheimat ("original homeland") in the
Nile Valley, or the
Near East.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somalia