Ali Sabieh is the gateway to Djibouti's Somali south: the country's second city, set in an amphitheatre of reddish mountains and gorges that wind and erosion have carved into spectacular shapes. Close to the borders with Ethiopia and Somaliland, it is a border town and a railway town, born from the line that linked the port of Djibouti with Addis Ababa at the start of the 20th century.
For travellers, Ali Sabieh combines landscape and authenticity. Around the town rise mountains in ochre and red tones, gorges and viewpoints that invite you to walk, and below stretches the vast Grand Bara desert, setting of the famous 15-kilometre race organised by the French army. The town, mostly Somali, offers the genuine pulse of inland Djibouti, far from the cosmopolitan feel of the capital.
This guide tells you how to visit Ali Sabieh: how to get there by road from the capital, what to see in its reddish mountains and gorges, its key role in the history of the Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway, how to combine it with the Grand Bara desert and its land-sailing, when to go to enjoy the scenery and what to expect from a lively, little-visited border town.
Ali Sabieh was born around 1899 as a settlement linked to the construction of the Franco-Ethiopian railway that connected the port of Djibouti with Addis Ababa, one of the great engineering works of the region. The arrival of the train anchored the population and turned the town into a strategic border crossing, a few kilometres from Ethiopia and close to Somaliland, in lands that are mostly Somali Issa. Over time it became the country's second city. The railway, in decline by the late 20th century, was reborn with the modern electric Addis Ababa-Djibouti line inaugurated in 2016-2018. More context on our history page.
Read the full history ↓Steam chimneys in a lunar landscape, endless plains and crossroads towns near Ethiopia: southern Djibouti is the country's most desert-like and cinematic corner.
Read the history of The desert south: Lake Abbé and the Grand Bara →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Southern Djibouti, where Ali Sabieh stands, is Somali land, and in particular land of the Issa clan, one of the two major communities that make up the country alongside the Afar. The Issa, herders and traders, live across a territory that stretches over southern Djibouti, eastern Ethiopia and northern Somalia and Somaliland. For centuries they have lived from herding camels and goats, from the caravan trade and from controlling the routes that cross these dry lands towards the interior of the Horn of Africa.
The Ali Sabieh region is a landscape of reddish sandstone and rock mountains, wind-carved gorges and desert plains such as the Grand Bara, the bed of an ancient lake that is now a flat plain. It is a beautiful and extremely harsh setting, with intense heat and little water, where traditional life depended on wells, seasonal pastures and herds that kept on the move. Into this ancient world came something new at the start of the 20th century that would change everything: the railway.
Before the train, the south was a land of nomads and caravans. It was part of the old trade networks of the Horn of Africa but far from any large town. Ali Sabieh became a permanent settlement only because of the arrival of iron and steam, through the great project that linked the port of Djibouti with the heart of Ethiopia.
At the end of the 19th century, France and Ethiopia came up with an ambitious plan: a railway linking the port of Djibouti, on the Gulf of Tadjoura, with Addis Ababa, the capital of the Ethiopian empire in the highlands of the interior. The aim was to give Ethiopia, a vast landlocked country, a trade route to the ocean, and to give the French colony an economic engine. Construction began in 1897 and was slow and difficult. The line had to cross deserts, mountains and the lands of peoples who were in no hurry to give them up.
This is how Ali Sabieh came into being, around 1899, as one of the points on the line along the Djiboutian section, near the Ethiopian border. The railway brought people who settled around the station: workers, traders and families who found in the train a source of work and trade. What began as a village tied to the construction works slowly grew into a stable town, a crossroads of the railway, the road and the caravan routes.
The Franco-Ethiopian railway reached Addis Ababa in 1917. For decades it was the region's great artery and the reason towns like Ali Sabieh, and Dire Dawa on the Ethiopian side, existed at all. The station, the passing trains and the bustle of goods shaped the town's identity and made it part of the history of one of Africa's best-known railway lines.
Throughout the 20th century, Ali Sabieh grew stronger as a border and railway town. It lies only about ten kilometres from the Ethiopian border and close to British Somaliland (later Somaliland), so it was always a place of contact, trade and movement between peoples and countries. Most of its people are Somali Issa, which also made it an important centre for that community within the territory, unlike the Afar areas of the north and west.
When Djibouti became independent in 1977, Ali Sabieh was already the new country's second city, and it still is. Among other things, Djiboutian politics has been shaped by the balance between the Afar and Issa communities, and towns like Ali Sabieh are landmarks on that human map. The region went through the tensions and adjustments that come with building a state, but it remained the main hub of the south.
The old railway, however, went into decline. Decades of poor maintenance, financial problems and competition from the road left the historic line in ruins by the end of the 20th century, and most services stopped. It looked like the end of the railway story that had founded the town. But the 21st century had a revival in store.
In the 2010s, the railway came back to life in a completely new form. Between 2016 and 2018, the modern electric standard-gauge line between Addis Ababa and Djibouti opened, built with Chinese financing and technology. It replaced the old colonial line. This new railway is one of the flagship projects of recent African infrastructure. It turned the corridor through southern Djibouti back into a vital trade artery between Ethiopia and the port of Djibouti, and put the Ali Sabieh region back in the spotlight.
Today Ali Sabieh combines its railway past and present with a growing appeal for visitors, built on its natural setting. It has reddish mountains and gorges, and the vast Grand Bara desert lies at its feet, with land-sailing and the famous 15-kilometre race organised by the French army. Add the feel of a Somali border town, and it becomes more and more interesting for travellers looking for the real Djibouti beyond the capital and the great lakes.
Ali Sabieh is the country's second city, the capital of its region, and a place where borders and railways meet. It sums up much of Djibouti's history: the railway that joined two countries, the Afar and Issa living side by side, and a harsh, beautiful land still finding its place between herding traditions and modern life. It rewards curious travellers with unforgettable landscapes and a different view of Djibouti.
