Shoa
a province in the S. E. of Abyssinia; area, about 26,000 square miles.
Pop. about 2,500,000. It consists (like the rest of Abyssinia) mostly of plateaus reaching up to an elevation of 10,000 feet on the S. E. and S., overtopped by higher mountains, and intersected by numerous SHOE-BILLED STORK streams mostly tributaries of the Blue Nile. The capital is Ankober. It also contains Addis Abeba, the capital of Abyssinia. In 1889 Menelek, King of Shoa, became ruler of all Abyssinia, which in 1896 became an independent state. See ABYSSINIA.