Map - Axum

Axum, or Aksum (pronounced: ), is a town in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia with a population of 66,900 residents (as of 2015).

It is the site of the historic capital of the Aksumite Empire, a naval and trading power that ruled the whole region in addition parts of West Asia as Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Southern Egypt and Sudan. It ruled the region from about 400 BCE into the 10th century. In 1980, UNESCO added Axum's archaeological sites to its list of World Heritage Sites due to their historic value.

Axum is located in the Central Zone of the Tigray Region, near the base of the Adwa mountains. It has an elevation of 2131 m and is surrounded by La'ilay Maychew, a separately administered woreda of the Tigray region.

Axum was the hub of the marine trading power known as the Aksumite Empire, which predated the earliest mentions in Roman-era writings. Around 356 CE, its ruler was converted to an Abyssinian variety of Christianity by Frumentius. Later, under the reign of the Emperor Kaleb, Axum was a quasi-ally of Byzantium against the Sasanian Empire which had adopted Zoroastrianism. The historical record is unclear with ancient church records being the primary contemporary sources.

It is believed the empire began a long and slow decline after the 7th century due partly to the Persians and then the Arabs contesting old Red Sea trade routes. Eventually the empire was cut off from its principal markets in Alexandria, Byzantium and Southern Europe and its share of trade captured by Arab traders of the era.

The Aksumite Empire was finally destroyed in the 10th century by Empress Gudit, and eventually some of the people of Axum were forced south and their old way of life declined. As the empire's power declined so did the influence of the city, which is believed to have lost population in the decline, similar to Rome and other cities thrust away from the flow of world events. The last known (nominal) emperor to reign was crowned in about the 10th century, but the empire's influence and power had ended long before that.

Its decline in population and trade then contributed to the shift of the power hub of the Ethiopian Empire south to the Amhara region as it moved further inland. In this period the city of Axum became the administrative seat of an empire spanning one million square miles. Eventually, the alternative name of Ethiopia was adopted by the central region and then by the modern state that presently exists.

"Axum" (or its Greek and Latin equivalents) appears as an important centre on indigenous maps of the northern Horn of Africa in the 15th century. Adal leader Ahmed ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi led the conquest of Axum in the sixteenth century.