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capital city of Djibouti
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Djibouti City (also called Djibouti and Jibuti in early Western texts) is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Djibouti. It is located in the coastal Djibouti Region on the Gulf of Tadjoura.
Djibouti has a population of around 780,000 inhabitants, which accounts for 73% of the country's population. The settlement was founded in 1888 by the French, on land leased from the ruling Somali and Afar Sultans. During the ensuing period, it served as the capital of French Somaliland and its successor the French Territory of the Afars and Issas.
There is evidence of human settlement on the eastern coastline of Djibouti dating back to the Bronze Age.
From 1862 until 1894, the land to the north of the Gulf of Tadjoura was called Obock and was ruled by Issa and Afar Sultans, local authorities with whom France signed various treaties between 1883 and 1887 to first gain a foothold in the region. The exchange of Franco-British diplomatic notes of 2 and 9 February 1888 fixed the territorial limit between the colonies of the two countries; leaving explicitly under French authority the southern coasts of the Gulf of Tadjoura, including a peninsula composed of insubmersible plateaux, Ras Djibouti as a highly strategic location, a future bridgehead for French designs in the rest of Africa and Asia. It is then that this point begins to be used as departure for caravans towards Harar.
The French subsequently founded Djibouti in 1888, in a previously uninhabited stretch of coast. According to one account, this was due to "its superiority to Obok both in respect to harbour accommodation and in nearness to Harrar." Ambouli was a small village before the French arrived, about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) south of Ras Djiboutil. Ambouli is identified with the city of Canbala by O.G.S. Crawford, appearing in Muhammad al-Idrisi's map of 1192 on the coast of the Horn of Africa, southeast of the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, and with Cambaleh, a town where the Venetian traveler Bragadino, a thirteenth-century European visitor to Ethiopia, resided for eight years. In 1896, the settlement was made the capital of French Somaliland. The main purpose of the French interest in colonizing the region was to protect their trade routes to Madagascar and Indochina from the encroachment of other European powers. The town later grew considerably in size following the construction of the Franco-Ethiopian Railway. In 1895, Djibouti, which, not so long ago, was just a peninsula, already had 5,000 inhabitants. Many Issa and Afar nomads left their herds to settle here, built houses on what is now the downtown area. They became dockers and constitute the first local proletariat. The French and natives built hotels, houses, mosques and churches. The Yemeni, Egyptian, Greek, Armenian and Italian merchants and traders flocked to this promise that Djibouti represented. Additionally, the rich agricultural southern area of Ambouli continued to flourish due to an abundance of date palm farms and orchards. Djibouti did not attract as many boats as Aden. In 1896, Léonce Lagarde became the first governor of the French Somali Coast, a new name for the French dependencies in the region. At the start of the 20th century, Djibouti had 10,000 inhabitants and was considered a major regional port. Its main activity remains the supply of French ships en route to Indochina or Madagascar. Only 150,000 tonnes of freight per year were handled. In addition, the railway line has not yet been fully exploited.
Although the initial French efforts to establish commercial influence in the region proved to be unsuccessful enough to require a government bailout, the Franco-Ethiopian Railway itself was a success and allowed Djibouti's commerce to quickly eclipse the former caravan-based trade carried on with nearby Zeila in British Somaliland. Djibouti became the center of exports from southern Ethiopia and the Ogaden, including trade in Harari coffee and khat. Djibouti began to develop as a commercial center. On 12 July 1926, the Fontainebleau, a Messageries Maritimes steamer loaded with cotton and heading for China caught fire while approaching Djibouti. The captain decided to flood the holds and run aground his ship in the middle of the harbor of Djibouti, causing significant inconvenience for port traffic. The city then proposed using the wreck as a promontory of a new deep-water port, connecting it to the Marabout plateau by a 700-meter jetty. The idea was accepted and work began in 1931. The first phase was completed in 1935 and considerably increased port and rail traffic. In 1933, Djibouti was the first town to be wired to electricity in French Somaliland, and an oil terminal was built in 1937.
During the Second World War, Djibouti was hit by Italian airstrikes on 21 June 1940, which killed many people in the town. The anti-aircraft fire was intense and two Italian aircraft failed to return, but fires and explosions were seen in Djibouti. Overnight, several waves of Savoia-Marchetti SM.81 bombers attacked the port facilities. After the defeat of France the colony came under the control of the pro-Axis Vichy government. By that time, the Allied offensive against the Italians included a blockade of French Somaliland. On 25 September the RAF launched several airstrikes on the city, prompting governor Pierre Nouailhetas to institute a brutal reign of terror against Europeans and African inhabitants of the city. Famine set in and malnutrition-related diseases took many lives, 70% of them women and children, and many townsfolk left for the hinterland. The locals named the blockade the carmii, a word for a type of sorghum usually reserved for cattle, but used as human food at the height of the famine. The head doctor at the hospital committed suicide in despair. Only a few Arab dhows (boutres) managed to run the blockade to Djibouti and Obock and only two French ships from Madagascar managed to run it.
The Japanese declaration of war (7 December 1941) gave the colony some respite, since the Royal Navy were forced to withdraw all but two ships from the blockade to be used in the Far East. The rule of Nouailhetas was too brutal for even the authoritarian leaders at Vichy to stand for. In October 1942 he was recalled and forced to retire without a pension, Following the war, he escaped to Portugal. He returned to face a military tribunal and was acquitted on 17 July 1953, which sparked outrage in Djibouti.
The Commander-in-Chief, East Africa, William Platt, codenamed the negotiations for the surrender of French Somaliland "Pentagon", because there were five sides: himself, the Vichy governor, the Free French, the British minister at Addis Ababa and the United States. Christian Raimond Dupont, the governor of French Somaliland, surrendered and Colonel Raynal's troops crossed back into French Somaliland on 26 December 1942, completing its liberation. The official handover took place at 10:00 p.m. on 28 December. The first governor appointed under the Free French was André Bayardelle.
In 1946, Djibouti received the status of overseas territory. An elected territorial assembly was created then, in 1956, a government council charged, under the chairmanship of the head of the territory, with the management of local affairs. At the same time, fiscal, customs and monetary measures are put in place to promote the development of the deep-water port, to finally compete with Aden. Port facilities expanded considerably and could afford to accommodate 2,000 ships per year. Djibouti becomes a free port and abandons the free zone. In 1948, a new currency, the Côte Française des Somalis, was created, pegged to the gold standard and convertible into dollars.
In August 1966, an official visit to the territory by then French President, General Charles de Gaulle, was also met with demonstrations and rioting. In response to the protests, de Gaulle ordered another referendum. On 19 March 1967, a second plebiscite was held to determine the fate of the territory. Initial results supported a continued but looser relationship with France. However, the referendum was again marred by reports of vote rigging on the part of the French authorities, voters rejected independence by a 50-point margin. Announcement of the plebiscite results sparked civil unrest, including several deaths.
The population of Djibouti was growing rapidly, from officially about 17,000 inhabitants in 1947. In 1949, the plan of Djibouti consisted of four main features: a hierarchical system of streets laid out in a grid, large blocks consisting of small-scale domestic dwellings, the organization of these blocks around central open spaces, and the concentration of cultural institutions to form a civic center. It then became the headquarters of the succeeding French Territory of the Afars and Issas.
When Djibouti declared Independence on 27 June 1977, the population of Djibouti was over 110,000, the city has since served as the administrative and commercial capital of the Republic of Djibouti.
Djibouti has an arid climate (Köppen: BWh). It is characterised by very hot rainless summers and a very warm, slightly wetter winter season. Most of the annual precipitation falls between October and May. The city sees on average 163.5 millimetres (6.44 in) of rainfall per year. Average high temperatures range from 29 °C (84 °F) during the months of December, January and February, to about 42 °C (108 °F) in July. There are two seasons: a hot dry season from May to October and a cooler season with more precipitation from November to April (winter). The rainfall on the coast usually occurs between November and March, whereas further inland it falls between April and October. In the summer months, temperatures routinely exceed 40 °C (104 °F), with relative humidity at its lowest point of the year. Sunshine is abundant in the city, averaging eight to ten hours a day year-round. It is lowest during the rainy period, when there is some coastal fog and greater cloud coverage as warm air passes over the cool sea surface. However, precipitation is highly variable and long periods without any rainfall occur throughout the year. Unusual episodes of heavy rain sometimes occur, with a maximal 224 millimetres (8.82 in) falling in November 1949.
This climate zone has summers that reach a maximum temperature of 42.1 °C (107.8 °F) and a minimum temperature of 31 °C (88 °F). Winters have average nighttime temperatures of 22 °C (72 °F) and a daytime maximum temperatures of 29 °C (84 °F). There are barely any days in the year without sunshine, and even during the winter there are many clear days.
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Djibouti is a multi-ethnic town. It had a population of around 777,000 residents (including suburbs like Balbala) in 2024, making it by far the largest settlement in the country. The largest ethnic group are the Somali and the second largest being Afars, both Cushitic speaking Cushitic peoples. The population of Djibouti City has risen exponentially with the successive waves of immigrants and refugees arriving throughout the 20th century. Many of the immigrants arrived from Ethiopia and Somalia in 1985 and 1991. In 2001 many undocumented immigrants, were expelled from Djibouti. Another mass wave of Yemeni refugees from Yemen arrived in 2015. Djibouti City was nicknamed the "French Hong Kong in the Red Sea" due to its cosmopolitan urbanism. In 2023, the government of Djibouti launched a major campaign to combat illegal immigration, citing security and public health concerns.
The majority of local residents speak Somali (303,100 speakers) or Afar (101,200 speakers) as a first language, which are the mother tongues of the Somali and Afar ethnic groups, respectively and the two main demographic groups in the city. Both languages belong to the larger Afroasiatic family. There are two official languages in Djibouti: Arabic (Afroasiatic) and French (Indo-European).
Arabic is of social, cultural and religious importance. In formal settings, it consists of Modern Standard Arabic. Colloquially, about 40,000 local residents speak the Ta'izzi-Adeni Arabic dialect, also known as Southern Yemeni Arabic due to Yemeni immigrants. French was inherited from the colonial period and is the primary language of instruction. About 14,200 Djiboutians speak it as a first language. Immigrant languages include Omani Arabic (38,900 speakers) and Amharic (1,400 speakers).
Text from the Wikipedia article “Djibouti City”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.