Hobyo

Hobyo is the most storied town in Galmudug. In 1878 Yusuf Ali Kenadid established the Sultanate of Hobyo here, a maritime state that traded across the Indian Ocean and treated with the imperial powers of the day, until Italy dismantled it in 1925 and folded the coast into Italian Somaliland.

The old town still faces the ocean across white dunes, and fishing — lobster, tuna, shark — remains the daily livelihood. In the years around 2008–2012 the town's anchorage was notorious as a base for piracy; that chapter has closed, and attention has shifted to the sea's legitimate wealth.

Hobyo's future is tied to its harbour. Its deep natural anchorage has attracted repeated port-development proposals, including a memorandum of understanding signed with Qatar in 2019 to study a modern port that would give central Somalia — and landlocked Ethiopia beyond it — a new gateway to the Indian Ocean.