Where did Haile Selassie grow up and live?

📍Kazanchis, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

1892 – 1974

“I was born Tafari Makonnen on the 23rd of July 1892 in Ejersa Goro in the Harar region of Ethiopia, and I became Haile Selassie I — Power of the Trinity — the last Emperor of Ethiopia, the two hundred and twenty-fifth descendant of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba according to the royal chronicle. I modernised Ethiopia, led the resistance to Italian invasion, addressed the League of Nations in 1936 in a speech that exposed the hollowness of collective security. I was restored to my throne by the British in 1941. I was deposed in a Marxist coup in 1974 and died in captivity in 1975. To the Rastafari movement across the Caribbean and beyond I am the returned Messiah — a status I accepted with whatever private feelings the historical record does not reveal.”

👍 LovedThe Ethiopian highlands and Addis Ababa's extraordinary position at the roof of Africa. The League of Nations speech that shamed the world. The restoration after the Italian occupation.

👎 DislikedThe Italian invasion and the years of exile. The famine of 1973 that my government concealed. The coup and the captivity at the end.

Map showing where Haile Selassie lived — Kazanchis, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

🗺️ Approximate location today

Satellite view of Haile Selassie's home at Kazanchis, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Sources: Kapuscinski, R. The Emperor (1978, translated William Brand and Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand), Harcourt; Lockot, H. The Mission: The Life, Reign and Character of Haile Sellassie I (1989)