Abstract
This paper aims to analyze the urban formation of the historical city of Mekelle, the current capital of Tigray Region in northern Ethiopia. Mekelle has once been the capital of Ethiopia in the second half of the 19th century during the reign of Emperor Yohannes IV. A series of surveys have revealed the construction process of this imperial city, which gathered nobles and warriors around the imperial palace. Their residences, first loosely connected, came to be more concentrated in accordance with the population growth. The typological observation of the case study area clarifies the chronological development of such residences since the end of the 19th century up to the Italian occupation of the 1930's. The planning will of the locals of this period succeeded in generating an exceptionally proper townscape of a stone city.
