Gondar or
Until the seventeenth century, Ethiopia had no capital, as the empire's rules moved about their territory living in tents in mobile royal camps while food being supplied by farmers around the camp. The history of Gondar City begins In 1636, Emperor Fasilides ended the tradition by decreeing Gondar to be the Ethiopia's capital and started building, the Royal Enclosure, Fasil Ghebbi, that became the palace town with a large number of different palaces and 3 churches and support buildings.
Most famous Gondar castles of Ethiopia are located in this 7 ha walled Royal Enclosure, the residence of Ethiopia's government from seventeenth to the first half of the nineteenth centuries, now being part of the Gondar UNESCO World Heritage Site. Other monuments elsewhere in and around the city also belonging to this World Heritage Site are, Fasilides' Bath and the Qusquam Enclosure with Mentewab's Palace and St. Mary Church, the Debre Berhan Selassie Church, Kiddush Yohannes; the Sosinios Castle, also known as Maryam Ghemb, the Gorgora Church and the Palace of Guzara.
