Berbera

Berbera

Berbera is the capital of Somaliland's Sahil region, a coastal city and the country's main seaport. Berbera was part of a chain of trading port cities on the Somali coast during antiquity, and in the early modern period it was the most important commercial center of the Horn of Africa. Berbera was one of the classical Somali city-states, which operated a lucrative trade network linking Somali traders with Phoenicia, Ptolemaic Egypt, Ancient Greece, Parthian Persia, Saba, Nabataea and the Roman Empire. Berbera keeps the ancient name of this coastal region on the south coast of the Gulf of Aden. It is thought to be the ancient port of Malao, described as 800 stadia from the city of Avalites, and described in the eighth chapter of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, written by a Greek merchant in the first century AD. In 863 AD, Duan Chengshi, a scholar of China's Tang Dynasty, described the slave, ivory and amber trade in Bobali, believed to be Berbera. The city was also mentioned later by the Islamic traveler Ibn Sa'id and by Ibn Battuta in the 13th century. An important and well-developed settlement, Berbera served as one of the main ports of several successive Somali kingdoms in the Middle Ages, such as the early Adal Kingdom, the Ifat Sultanate and the Adal Sultanate. This old port town is the only protected port on the south side of the Gulf of Aden. The landscape surrounding the city, including the coastal plain of Somaliland, is semi-desert. Due to popular local beaches such as Bathela and Batalale, the city has earned the nickname Beach City.