Merca

Merca is a port on the Benadir coast southwest of Mogadishu, where the Indian Ocean meets the fertile hinterland of the Shabelle valley. Merchants used the harbour to exchange the produce of the river country with ships sailing along the East African coast and across the ocean. Its mosques and coastal houses belong to a long tradition of Muslim urban life in southern Somalia.

During the Middle Ages Merca was among the centres associated with the Ajuran sultanate. The town's fortunes were tied to both the inland river valley and the maritime routes that carried traders between Somali ports, Arabia and other shores. As the Ajuran polity declined in the seventeenth century, Merca remained one of the ports through which the people of the Benadir coast maintained their commercial connections.