Banaadir

Banaadir (Banaadir, بنادر, Benadir) is an administrative region (gobol) in southeastern Somalia. It covers the same area as the city of Mogadishu, which serves as the capital. It is bordered to the northwest by the Shabelle river, and to the southeast by the Indian Ocean. Although by far the smallest administrative region in Somalia, it has the largest population, estimated at 1,650,227 (including 369,288 internally displaced persons) in 2014. The territorial extent and scope of the term Benadir has varied in definition throughout its history, with medieval usage extending Benadir to huge swaths of coast adjacent to Mogadishu stretching as far as hundreds of miles. The early modern period which extended the meaning of Benadir to the interior midway towards the Hirshabelle region, to the contemporary period wherein sometimes the nonstandard misnomer of usage being interchangeable with the city of Mogadishu. This Banaadir municipality is bordered to the north by Hirshabelle and to the southwest by South West, and is the only Somali gobol (administrative region) which is both a municipality and a gobol known as a region. The Banaadir region is bordered by the Middle Shebelle (Shabeellaha Dhexe) and Lower Shebelle (Shabeellaha Hoose), as well as the Indian Ocean. "Benaadir" is derived from the Somali banaadir, which means "coast", in reference to the southern Somali coastal cities Mogadishu, Merka and Barawa. The place name reflects the region's medieval position as a key trade center with Persia, Arabian peninsula and the Swahili coast. The name derives from the Persian bandar meaning ‘port’ or ‘harbour’. Its capital is Mogadishu, known locally as Xamar (pronounced: Hamar), although the administrative region itself is coextensive with the city. Benaadir is much smaller than the historical region of Benadir, which covers most of the country's central and southern seaboard opposite the Indian Ocean and up to the Juba River, including Mogadishu. Thabit M.