Mogadishu, locally known as Xamar or Hamar, is the capital city and most populous city of Somalia. The city has served as an important port connecting with traders all round the Indian Ocean for millennia and has an estimated population of 2,388,000. Mogadishu is located in the coastal Banadir region on the Indian Ocean, which unlike other Somali regions, is considered a municipality rather than a maamul goboleed.
Mogadishu has a long history, which ranges from the ancient period up until the present, serving as the capital of the influential Sultanate of Mogadishu in the 9th-13th century, which for many centuries controlled the Indian Ocean gold trade, and eventually came under the Ajuran Empire in the 13th century which was an important player in the medieval Silk Road maritime trade. Mogadishu enjoyed the height of its prosperity during the 14th and 15th centuries and was during the early modern period considered the wealthiest city on the East African coast, as well as the center of a thriving textile industry.