Founded 1896 Date dissolved 1967 | Government Dependent territory 1966–1967 Louis Saget Area 23,200 km² | |
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Political structures French colonial empire (1896–1946), Overseas France (1946–1967) | ||
French Somaliland (French: Côte française des Somalis, "French Coast of Somalis"; Somali: Dhulka Soomaaliyeed ee Faransiiska) was a French colony in the Horn of Africa. It existed between 1883 and 1967.
History
It was established between 1883 and 1887, after the ruling Somali and Afar sultans signed the land away in various treaties with the French. The name of French Somaliland , “Cote Francaise des Somalis” is said to have been proposed by Mohamed Haji Dide of the Mahad 'Ase branch of the Gadabuursi. He himself before the arrival of the French was prosperous merchant of Zayla and the sultan. He came on to build the first Mosque in Djibouti "Gami ar-Rahma" in 1891.
On the other side of the Bab el Mandeb strait, the French held a small peninsula in the Aden territory.
The construction of the Imperial Ethiopian Railway west into Ethiopia turned the port of Djibouti into a boomtown of 15,000 at a time when Harar was the only city in Ethiopia to exceed that.
Although the population fell after the completion of the line to Dire Dawa and the original company failed and required a government bail-out, the rail link allowed the territory to quickly supersede the caravan-based trade carried on at Zeila (then in the British area of Somaliland) and become the premier port for coffee and other goods leaving southern Ethiopia and the Ogaden through Harar.
The railway continued to operate following the Italian conquest of Ethiopia but, following the tumult of the Second World War, the area became an overseas territory of France in 1946. In 1967, French Somaliland was renamed the French Territory of the Afars and the Issas and, in 1977, it became the independent country of Djibouti.