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Gondar is a city in the Amhara Region of northern Ethiopia, lying north of Lake Tana on the Lesser Angereb River and southwest of the Simien Mountains. It had an estimated 443,156 people in 2021, and its royal castles have earned it the name of the Camelot of Africa.
Emperor Fasilides chose Gondar as his royal camp in 1636, at a point where caravans from Sudan and the Red Sea met, and his successors kept it as their capital. Under Iyasu I the population passed 60,000, but it had fallen to about 8,000 by the 1870s, and Mahdist forces burnt the city's churches in 1888.
Gondar remains a centre of learning of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and was long known for its 44 churches. The Royal Enclosure of Fasil Ghebbi became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979, and the city is also the gateway to the Simien Mountains and the northern shore of Lake Tana.
Fasilides' Castle is the imposing palace at the heart of the Fasil Ghebbi, built for Emperor Fasilides after he made Gondar his capital in 1636. Its head mason was an Indian named Abdal Kerim, and a Yemeni envoy who visited in 1648 called it one of the most marvellous of buildings.
Iyasu I's Palace was built for the emperor who ruled from 1682 to 1706, reportedly by the Ethiopian architect Walda Giyorgis, and was praised as more beautiful than the house of Solomon. Iyasu decorated it with ivory, mirrors and cedar, and its ceiling was covered in gold leaf and precious stones.
Mentewab's Castle stands within the Royal Enclosure, built by the empress who was consort of Emperor Bakaffa and regent for her son Iyasu II. A major political figure of the 18th century, she also added a large banqueting hall to the enclosure before retiring to her palace at Kuskuam.
The Library and Chancellery of Yohannes I were added to the Royal Enclosure by the son of Fasilides, who ruled from 1667 to 1682 and kept Gondar as his capital. Like his father he built a great deal, and his two-storey library and chancery with an imposing tower still stand among the castles.
Debre Berhan Selassie, the Mount of the Light of the Trinity, stands on a hill at the northern edge of Gondar. The rectangular church is 27 metres long and surrounded by a covered walkway, and the rich paintings on its ceiling and walls, made between 1815 and 1825, have made it famous.
Fasilides' Bath is a pleasure pool with a stone pavilion beside the Qaha River, attributed like the castle to Emperor Fasilides and part of the World Heritage Site. It lies near the city and is home to an annual ceremony in which the pool is blessed and then opened for bathing.
Kuskuam, also written Qusquam, is the church of the Virgin Mary that Empress Mentewab built in the mountains outside Gondar, named after a site in Egypt where the Holy Family stayed. She built a palace beside it that became her favoured residence, and she retreated there in later life.
Wolleka is a village near Gondar that was the main centre of the Beta Israel, the Jews of Ethiopia, who settled in Israel in the early 1990s. Its population has declined, but the village is still known for its former synagogue, its Jewish cemetery and the pottery made there.
Simien Mountains National Park is the largest national park in Ethiopia and one of the first sites inscribed by UNESCO, in 1978, for its biodiversity and landscape. Its cliffs and peaks shelter the Ethiopian wolf, the gelada and the walia ibex, a wild goat found nowhere else.
Ras Dashen, or Ras Dejen, is the highest mountain in Ethiopia, rising to 4,550 metres inside the Simien Mountains National Park. It is the eastern peak on the rim of an enormous ancient volcano, and the first recorded European ascent was made by two French officers in 1841.
Lake Tana, about 35 kilometres south of Gondar, is the largest lake in Ethiopia and a source of the Blue Nile. It is about 84 kilometres long and 66 kilometres wide, and a Portuguese missionary of the early 17th century counted 21 islands, seven or eight of them with monasteries.
Gorgora is a town and small peninsula on the north shore of Lake Tana, south of Gondar. It became an important Jesuit mission after Emperor Susenyos I granted land in 1607, with a seminary teaching in Portuguese and Amharic, and the peninsula is also home to the monastery of Mandaba.
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