Bahir Dar

Bahir Dar ባሕር ዳር
Way to the mosque
State :	Ethiopia
Region :	Amhara
Coordinates :	11 ° 33 '  N , 37 ° 22'  E Coordinates: 11 ° 33 '  N , 37 ° 22'  E
Height :	1,840 meters above sea level
Residents :	297,794 (2016)
Time zone :	EAT (UTC + 3)
Telephone code :	(+251) (0) 11
Bahir Dar

Café on the shores of Lake Tana with a bar on pontoons and the boat dock

Bahir Dar ( Amharic ባሕር ዳር bahərdar ) is the capital of the Ethiopian province of Amhara and the sixth largest city ​​in Ethiopia. In 2016 it has about 297,794 inhabitants.

Bahir Dar is 320 km as the crow flies or 578 km by road north-northwest of Addis Ababa at an altitude of approx. 1840 m on the southern shore of Lake Tana . Lake Tana is Ethiopia's largest lake and the source of the Blue Nile. The Lake Tana region has been a UNESCO biosphere reserve since 2015 .

The discharge of the blue Nile on the eastern edge of the city is regulated by the Chara-Chara weir and crossed by a bridge.

There are 20 Christian Orthodox monasteries in the city . The city has an airport and a university .

One of Haile Selassie's palaces is near the city. 30 km to the southeast are the Tisissat waterfalls of the Blue Nile (Abbai). The source of the Blue Nile is located in Gish Abay in the mountains 70 km south of Bahir Dar as the crow flies.

history

Round church of the Zeghie Azwa Mariam monastery on a peninsula in Lake Tana

The city grew around a mission of the Jesuits , which was built in the 16th or 17th century.

At the end of the Ethiopian civil war, Bahir Dar was captured by troops of the Tigray People's Liberation Front in March 1991 .

Population development

The following overview shows the population by area since the 1984 census.

year	Residents
1984	54,800
1994	96.140
2007	155,428
2015	297.794

Twin cities

• Cleveland , USA (since 2004)
• Ashdod , ISR (since 2011)

Bahir Dar
Climate diagram
J F. M. A. M. J J A. S. O N D.     5   24 16     5   25th 17th     10   25th 18th     25th   25th 18th     85   24 17th     185   21st 15th     430   19th 14th     375   19th 14th     305   20th 15th     90   21st 15th     25th   22nd 15th     5   23 15th Temperature in ° C ,  precipitation in mm Source: National Meteorological Agency of Ethiopia

literature

• Rare Seyoum: A History of Bahir Dar Town 1936–1974 . MA thesis, Addis Ababa University 1988.
• Rare Seyoum: Land Alination & Urban Growth, Bahir Dar . In: David M. Andersen, Richard Rathbone: Africa's Urban Past . James Currey, Oxford 2000, ISBN 0852557612 (UK); ISBN 0325002207 (USA)
• Rare Seyoum: History of Bahir Dar . In: Siegbert Uhlig (Ed.): Encyclopaedia Aethiopica , Volume 1: A – C. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2003, ISBN 3-447-04746-1 , p. 444.

Web links

Commons : Bahir Dar  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Population figures (2005), see tables B.3 and B.4 (PDF; 1.70 MB)
• Homepage of the Lake Tana Biosphere Reserve
• Lake Tana project page of the Naturschutzbund (NABU) eV

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Gordon Cheers (Ed.): Christianity. 2000 years of cultural history . Tandem Verlag, Potsdam 2010, ISBN 978-3-8331-5312-9 , p. 19.
2. ↑ Ethiopia: Regions & Cities - Population Statistics in Maps and Tables. Retrieved January 6, 2019 . 
3. ↑ National Meteorological Agency of Ethiopia: Climate Information Bahir Dar. World Meteorological Organization, accessed October 27, 2012 .