Jimma Museum

Western Ethiopia


Admission to the Muuziyemii Jimmaa includes a guided tour in English of the museum's seven small rooms. We don’t want to steal the guide’s thunder (such as it is), but our favourite pieces include a ceremonial throne that cost Birr146,000 to build but was only used by Haile Selassie for 20 minutes, and a royal portable toilet that looks like a frying pan with a hole in it.

Other oddities include a poster with the entire Quran written on it in a script of almost microscopic proportions, and an Italian-made walking stick–cum-gun.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Western Ethiopia attractions

1. Municipal Buildings

0.07 MILES

If you’re a connoisseur of Italian Fascist architecture, take a peek at Jimma's municipal buildings.

2. Coffee Pot Monument

0.27 MILES

Sits on the main roundabout in the centre of town. It looks like, well, an Ethiopian coffee pot.

4. Boye Dam

3.58 MILES

Located 5km southeast of Jimma off the road to Addis, the dam has some good birdwatching opportunities, but take the locals’ claims of hippos with a hippo…

5. Palace of Abba Jiffar

3.66 MILES

Looking more out of America’s Wild West than the Kafa kingdom, the increasingly fragile Palace of Abba Jiffar looks as if a strong wind could blow it away…