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Next to Addis Ababa, perhaps, Dire Dawa is the most cosmopolitan city in Ethiopia and a melting pot of both traditional and contemporary cultures, founded in 1902, when the construction of the only railway the country boasts started.

Temporary name, please change.

Temporary name, please change.

Temporary name, please change.

Temporary name, please change.

Dire Dawa is constituted by two distinct settlements, separated by the Dechatu stream, which is for most of the year simply a dry riverbed but flushes into a torrent during the rainy season.

To the north and west of this watercourse lies Kezira, the "modern" half of the town, which was constructed, for the most part, by the railway engineers. The area consists of the railway terminal, many modern buildings, shops, offices, etc. This part of the town differs from most Ethiopian settlements in that it was constructed in a carefully thought-out manner, with straight, asphalt roads and well-aligned buildings. It is also unusual in having piped water, which comes from two nearby natural springs, and a drainage system.

On the other side of the riverbed lies the Megala, home to the traditional Kefira market, handling an immense variety of goods supplied by Somali, Afar and Oromo merchants with their camel trains and donkeys, bustling about in a variety of traditional dress. The market is surrounded by an agglomeration of local Arab-style houses, which are painted in various hues and are set in a maze of winding, unplanned roads and byways.

It is both fun and of greater advantage in this part of the town to take the horse-drawn gharis (buggies), which provide a cheap taxi service, than driving ones own vehicle.

Dire Dawa is home to cement and textile factories, a number of well stocked shops, two cinemas, two secondary schools, and two hospitals.

What is particularly good about Dire Dawa, especially during the rainy season, is its warm, evening breeze (otherwise hot during the day, but still friendly enough for one to stroll, in light shirt and pants, in the shades of its carefully groomed trees, with their red and blue blossoms, lining both sides of the street in the Kezira part of the town.

Dire Dawa currently is an autonomous, chartered town under the federal administrative arrangement of the current regime.

Dire Dawa is home to caves with stalactite and stalagmite formations and prehistoric paintings said to date as far back as 20,000 years ago, evidence that this part of Africa has been inhabited by humans since so many years back. Dire Dawa also is a site where a homo sapiens mandible was discovered in 1933, the actual excavation having taken place in 1975.

About 60 kilometers from Dire Dawa, on the road connecting Harar and Addis Ababa, is Qulubi Gabriel, a site which tens of thousands of pilgrims visit two times a year (December and July) to supplicate St. Gabriel for the fulfillment of wishes, in return for which the supplicants flood the Saint's church with gifts. The flood of people is a sight to behold in its own right.