Merca
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Merca Marka مَركة |
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|---|---|
| City | |
Merca beachside
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 Merca
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| Coordinates: 01°41′00″N 044°45′00″E / 1.68333°N 44.75000°ECoordinates: 01°41′00″N 044°45′00″E / 1.68333°N 44.75000°E | |
| Country |
 Somalia
|
| Region | Lower Shebelle |
| District | Merca |
| Population (2005) | |
| • Total | 192,939 |
| Time zone | EAT (UTC+3) |
Merca (Somali: Marka, Arabic: مركة) is an ancient port city in the southern Lower Shebelle province of Somalia. Facing the Indian Ocean, it is the main town in the province. It is located approximately 109 km (68 mi) to the southwest of the nation's capital Mogadishu. Merca is the traditional home territory of the Bimal clan and was the center of the Bimal Revolt.
Merca was established in the 7th century by the Bimaal clan. The first Somalis arrived in the city in the 6th century and gained control of the city and trade of the region.
The 13th-century Arab geographer Ibn Sa'id described Merca as the "capital of Banaadiri country". During the 12th century, the cartographer Muhammad al-Idrisi may have referred to the Hawiye as well, as he called Merca the region of the "Hadiye", which Herbert S. Lewis believes is a scribal error for "Hawiye", as do Guilliani, Schleicher and Cerulli. During the Middle Ages, the area was one of several prominent administrative centers of the Ajuran Sultanate. The polity formed one of the largest kingdoms in the southern half of the Horn region. During the Middle Ages, the Merca area was part of the Ajuran Sultanate's realm. The polity formed one of the largest kingdoms in the southern half of the Horn region. Various pillar tombs exist in the region, which local tradition holds were built in the 16th century, when the Sultanate's governed the district. During the early nineteenth centuryBiimaal pastoralists immigrated and settled at the outskirts of Merca.
In the 1930s a group of Italian Somalis established residency in Merca. The Port of Merca was the second in Italian Somalia and was nicknamed the "port of bananas" due to its status as a key exporter of bananas from Somalia to Europe. In the city of Merca there was a huge economical development in the 1930s, due mainly to the growing commerce of the port of Merca connected by small railway to the farm area of Genale.World War II did some damages to Merca.
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Wikipedia