Description : Kismayo (Somali: Kismaayo; Arabic: كيسمايو, Kīsmāyū; Italian: Chisimaio) is a port city in the southern Lower Juba (Jubbada Hoose) province of Somalia. It is the commercial capital of the autonomous Jubaland region. The city is situated 528 kilometres (328 miles) southwest of Mogadishu, near the mouth of the Jubba River, where the waters empty into the Indian Ocean. According to the United Nations Development Programme, the city of Kismayo had a population of around 89,333 in 2005. During the Middle Ages, Kismayo and its surrounding area was part of the Ajuran Empire that governed much of southern Somalia and eastern Ethiopia, with its domain extending from Hobyo in the north, to Qelafo in the west, to Kismayo in the south. In the early modern period, Kismayo was ruled by the Geledi Sultanate and by the later 1800s, the Boqow dynasty. The kingdom was eventually incorporated into Italian Somaliland in 1910 after the death of the last sultan, Osman Ahmed. After independence in 1960, the city was made the center of the official Kismayo District. During antiquity. Kismayo was part of the Somali city-states that in engaged in a lucrative trade network connecting Somali merchants with Phoenicia, Ptolemic Egypt, Greece, Parthian Persia, Saba, Nabataea and the Roman Empire. Somali sailors used the ancient Somali maritime vessel known as the beden to transport their cargo. Middle Ages and the early modern period Main articles: Ajuran Sultanate, Geledi Sultanate, and Somali aristocratic and court titles The Kismayo area was originally a small fishing settlement. During the Middle Ages, the region came under the rule of the influential Ajuran Sultanate, which utilized the Jubba River for its plantations. After the collapse of this polity, the House of Gobroon was established and the Sultanate of the Geledi held sway over the area. The dynasty reached its apex under the successive reigns of Sultan Yusuf Mahamud Ibrahim, who successfully consolidated Gobroon power during the Bardera wars, and Sultan Ahmed Yusuf, who forced regional powers such as the Omani Empire to submit tribute.
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