Abiy Addi (also spelled Abi Addi; Tigrigna ዓብዪ ዓዲ "Big town") is a town in central Tigray, Ethiopia. Abiy Addi is at the southeastern edge of the Kola Tembien woreda, of which it is the capital. Overview The town is divided into two parts by the Tanqwa River, the lower part being the more respectable part while the upper part "is where you'll find the marketplace ... and the seedier bars in which you're most likely to see Awri dancing as the tej hits the mark." Briggs notes that Abiy Addi is known in Tigray for the frenetic style of dancing called "Awri", as well as the quality of its honey. Having visited Abiy Abbi in the mid-1940s, David Buxton thought that "perhaps the best thing about Abbi Addi was the panorama of the Simien mountains standing to the west beyond the deep valley of the Tekezé." Buxton notes that the entire height of that mountain range was visible, from the southern foothills to the summit. "And round about the lower slopes, dimly seen through the haze, were many fantastic outlying peaks, square or spiky, like the mountains of a child's imagination." As for the town itself, Philip Briggs describes it as "a reasonably substantial settlement, set in a dusty valley below an impressive cliff." Abiy Addi is connected to Mekelle to the east in 90 km and Adwa to the northnorthwest in 90 km by asphalt roads. History Abiy Addi owed its importance in the 19th century due to its location on the "King's Road", at the point where the road south from Adwa split, one branch taking travellers to Debre Tabor and the other to the Lake Ashenge region. The British explorer Charles Beke passed through this town (which he called "A'biyad") 15 April 1843, and described it later as "the principal place of Tembien, and a large market-town." However, in later years the fortunes of the town varied. By 1890, visitors described Abiy Addi as a small market town which handled various imported goods, such as mirrors made in France, cotton cloth from Manchester and Mumbai, as well as the usual local produce. Writing a few years later, Augustus B. Wylde described the Abiy Addi market, held on Saturdays, as of medium size. On 5 December 1935, during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, Abiy Addi was occupied by the Italian Eritrean Corps. the town was evacuated later that