Adwa

Adwa (ä'dwä), Aduwa, or Adowa (both: ä'dəwä), Ital. Adua, town (1994 pop. 24,519), Tigray region, N Ethiopia. Lying on the highway between Aksum and Adigrat, Adwa is an agricultural trade center. Adwa was the most important commercial center of Tigray in the 19th cent., but declined in the 1870s as a result of the dislocation caused by the fighting between Ethiopia and Egypt. In 1896, Adwa was the site of the battle in which Menelik II decisively defeated Italian invaders and forced them out of Ethiopia.