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Bahir Dar is the capital city of the Amhara Region of Ethiopia, lying at the exit of the Abbay, or Blue Nile, from Lake Tana at an altitude of 1,820 metres. It is known for its wide avenues lined with palm trees and colourful flowers, and in 2002 it was awarded the UNESCO Cities for Peace Prize.
The settlement, first called Bahir Giyorgis, grew up around the 13th century around a church on the site of today's St George Church, and between 1810 and 1900 it had only 1,200 to 2,000 inhabitants. In the 20th century the government developed it as a market and transport centre, adding hydroelectric power, a lake port, the Abbay Bridge, textile mills and colleges.
Today Bahir Dar is home to one of the largest universities in Ethiopia and is the base for boat trips to the island monasteries of Lake Tana, which keep the remains of emperors and treasures of Ethiopian Christianity. The Blue Nile Falls lie about 30 kilometres downstream.
Ura Kidane Mehret is a round church on the Zege Peninsula whose interior is said to be the most impressive in the Lake Tana region. The convent was founded in the 14th century by Betre Mariyam, the present church dates from the 16th, and its treasury keeps the crowns of Tewodros II and Yohannes IV.
Narga Selassie is a church on Dek Island, the largest island in Lake Tana, built by Empress Mentewab in the late 18th century. A giant sycamore fig on the site is said to have supplied wood for its doors and roof, and a relief at the main entrance portrays the Scottish explorer James Bruce.
Daga Estifanos is the monastery of St Stephen on Daga Island, a holy volcanic cone some 300 feet high where no women or female animals may land. In 1933 a visitor found its monks the strictest recluses of all, and the remains of emperors including Zara Yaqob and Fasilides lie in wooden coffins here.
Kebran Gabriel is the island monastery closest to Bahir Dar, founded in the 14th century and rebuilt in the 17th. Its roof rests on twelve carved stone pillars for the twelve apostles, and it is called one of the most beautiful monasteries on the lake, though it is now closed to the public.
Lake Tana, at whose outlet Bahir Dar stands, is the largest lake in Ethiopia and the source of the Blue Nile. It holds 27 fish species, 20 of them found nowhere else, and about 230 bird species such as pelicans and fish eagles, and the region was nominated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 2015.
The Zege Peninsula juts into the southwest of Lake Tana, some 20 kilometres by land and 15 by water from Bahir Dar. In contrast to the farmland around it, it is covered in dense coffee forest, and among its historic churches the oldest is Mehal Zege Giyorgis, founded by Abune Betre Mariam in 1264.
Dek Island is the largest island in Lake Tana, covering about 16 square kilometres, and can be reached on the ferry that runs from Bahir Dar to Gorgora. It is home to several monasteries, the best known being Narga Selassie, and a visitor in 1866 counted four villages on it, each with a church.
The Blue Nile leaves Lake Tana at Bahir Dar on a journey of about 1,450 kilometres to Khartoum, where it joins the White Nile. In the rainy season it supplies 80 to 86 percent of the water of the Nile, and hippos, Nile monitors and softshell turtles are seen near the outflow from the lake.
The Blue Nile Falls, known in Amharic as Tis Abay or great smoke, lie about 30 kilometres downstream from Bahir Dar. They are 42 metres high and split into four streams that can spread over 400 metres wide in the rainy season, though a hydroelectric station has drawn off much of the flow since 2003.
A short distance downstream from the Blue Nile Falls stands the first stone bridge built in Ethiopia, raised at the command of Emperor Susenyos in 1626. Susenyos ruled from 1607 to 1632 and is remembered as the Catholic emperor, having publicly converted in 1622 with the hope of Portuguese help.
St George Church, Kidus Giyorgis, stands where Bahir Dar began around the 13th century with the building of the Kidanemariam Church, and the settlement was first called Bahir Giyorgis. An early visitor noted the church was built of stone and lime, and its monastery once taxed a wide region.
Bahir Dar University is one of the largest universities in Ethiopia, with about 45,000 students in 65 undergraduate and 67 graduate programmes. It grew from the technical school that Emperor Haile Selassie inaugurated on 11 June 1963, and took its present form in 2000 from two colleges.
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Photo: Bernard Gagnon, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
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Photo: A. Davey from Where I Live Now: Pacific Northwest, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
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Photo: RNLockwood, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
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Photo: CT Snow from Hsinchu, Taiwan, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
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Photo: A.Savin, Wikimedia Commons, FAL
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