Addis Ababa

Addis Ababa is the capital city of Ethiopia. Ethiopia is a country in East Africa.

The city is high up in the hills. Its name means new flower.

Addis Ababa is the capital of Ethiopia, in the highlands of East Africa. It sits about 2,355 meters above sea level, on the slopes below Mount Entoto. In Amharic its name means 'new flower'; in the Oromo language the city is called Finfinnee.

The Ethiopian Statistics Service projected that 3,859,999 people lived in the city in July 2022. Addis Ababa is also home to the African Union, an organization of African countries.

Addis Ababa is a chartered city and Ethiopia's federal capital, lying at about 2,355 m on the foothills of Mount Entoto. The Ethiopian Statistics Service's official projection for 1 July 2022 was 3,859,999 residents, against 2,739,551 at the 2007 census, the most recent count.

Universalis traces the city's growth from about 800,000 people in 1970, as government became more centralized and, after 1991, as people moved in from the countryside; growth to the north is blocked by the protected forest on the Entoto slopes. Since 1963 the city has been the seat of the Organization of African Unity, now the African Union, and Universalis counts more than a hundred embassies and many international agencies there.

A museum in Addis Ababa shows Lucy. Lucy lived more than three million years ago.

Her real old bones are kept safe in a locked room. Visitors see a copy.

The National Museum of Ethiopia, in Addis Ababa, shows a copy of Lucy, one of the most famous fossils of an early human relative. Her bones, about 3.2 million years old, were found at Hadar in Ethiopia in 1974. In Ethiopia she is called Dinknesh, which means 'you are marvelous' in Amharic.

The real fossil is kept in a secure vault, so visitors see a replica. Lucy could walk upright on two legs, and her long arms helped her climb trees.

Lucy (fossil AL 288-1), an Australopithecus afarensis skeleton about 40% complete, was found at Hadar in 1974 by a team led by Donald Johanson and Maurice Taieb. The Smithsonian's Human Origins Program describes her short, broad pelvis and angled thigh bones as adaptations for walking upright, while her long, curved toe bones and powerful arms suggest she also climbed trees.

At the National Museum of Ethiopia a replica is exhibited and the real bones are stored in a secure vault; AP reported in August 2025 that the original had left the country for about two months, to be shown in Prague with Selam, an Australopithecus child about 100,000 years older found in the same region. About 3 km south of the museum is Meskel Square, where the two light-rail lines' shared section ends.

Electric trains carry people across Addis Ababa. Some stations are up high on bridges.

Big airplanes land at the airport, at the edge of the city.

Addis Ababa's light-rail trains began carrying passengers in November 2015. The network has two lines, east–west and north–south, about 34 kilometers long in all, and they share 2.7 kilometers of track in the center between Lideta and Meskel Square.

The 39 stations are built in different ways: most are at ground level, some are on bridges, and one is in a tunnel. Bole International Airport lies to the southeast of the center.

The Ethiopian Railways Corporation describes the light rail, which officially began an 18-hour daily service in November 2015, as 34 km long in two directions: the East–West line from Ayat Square to Tor Hayloch Hospital (17.4 km) and the North–South line from Menelik II Square to Kality (16.59 km), sharing 2.7 km of track from Lideta to Meskel Square.

It is double-track standard gauge (1,435 mm), designed for 80 km/h and run at 70 km/h, with 39 stations: 27 at ground level, 9 on bridges, 2 partly on bridges and 1 in a tunnel, plus 22 elevators and 12 escalators. Its 41 trains each carry up to 317 passengers. Universalis places Bole airport at the southeastern end of the city's eastern prestige avenue, and the eastern edge of the built-up area now reaches it.

Tall eucalyptus trees cover the hills above the city.

A very big market called the Mercato sells many kinds of things.

Forests of eucalyptus trees cover the slopes of the Entoto hills above the city. This protected forest stops the city from spreading north, so new neighborhoods grow in other directions.

On the west side of the center is the great market, the Mercato, with workshops and trading streets around it. In the photo, people walk and rest in Sheger Park, beside a lake with a tall fountain, with the city's new towers behind.

Universalis describes a city that slides down its slope: two parallel north–south avenues follow the hill, one on the west from the city hall to the railway station, and one on the east past the university, the cathedral, ministries and palaces, curving southeast toward Bole airport. East–west roads cross deep valleys between flat ridges, where monuments, apartment blocks and the first towers stand.

Workshops and trade spread west from the Mercato, the great market moved to the west of the city between 1936 and 1941, while residential districts with rising towers stretch toward the airport. The forest protected on the Entoto foothills blocks growth to the north. The photo shows Sheger Park, with a lake, a tall fountain and lawns, and new towers beyond.