Adwa
[key], Ital. Adua, town, Tigray region, N Ethiopia. Lying on the highway
between Aksum and Adigrat, Adwa is an agricultural trade center. Adwa was the most important
commercial center of Tigray in the 19th cent., but declined in the 1870s as a result of the
dislocation caused by the fighting between Ethiopia and Egypt. In 1896, Adwa was the site of
the battle in which Menelik II decisively defeated Italian invaders and forced
them out of Ethiopia.
See R. Jonas, The Battle of Adwa (2011).
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