Somalia

The coast of Somalia has been part of Indian Ocean trade for more than two thousand years. Ancient Egyptian records of the Land of Punt, the incense and myrrh trade, and Greek and Roman accounts of the ports all point to the same shoreline.

From the medieval period the sultanates of Adal, Ajuran and later Geledi and the Majeerteen governed trade in cloth, livestock, frankincense and gold, linking the Horn to Arabia, Persia, India and China.

Somali society is organised around clan and lineage, and its scholars, merchants and sailors carried Islam and Arabic learning across the region from the earliest centuries.

Somali culture places poetry at the centre of public life. Gabay, buraanbur and heello are not entertainment alone: they argue politics, settle disputes, record genealogy and preserve history, memorised and passed on without writing.

Alongside poetry stand henna, weaving, wood carving and the aromatic trade in frankincense and myrrh that has run through these hills since antiquity.

Somalia has the longest mainland coastline in Africa, more than three thousand kilometres of reef, dune and fishing ground running from the Gulf of Aden around the Horn to the Indian Ocean.

Inland, the Cal Madow mountains hold relict forests and endemic species, and at Laas Geel near Hargeisa some of the oldest and best preserved rock paintings in Africa still show cattle and herders in vivid colour.

Mogadishu grew as a medieval trading city; the Fakr ad-Din mosque there dates to the thirteenth century, and the old quarter of Hamar Weyne preserves the coral-stone architecture of the Indian Ocean world.

Berbera on the Gulf of Aden and Zeila to its west were among the great transit ports of the region, exporting livestock, hides and incense north into Arabia for centuries.