Mo·ga·di·shu 
(mō′gə-dēsh, -dĭsh, mô′-)
(mō′gə-dēsh, -dĭsh, mô′-) The capital and largest city of Somalia, on the Indian Ocean. Settled by Arab colonists in the ninth or tenth century, it was occupied in 1871 by the sultan of Zanzibar, who leased it to the Italians in 1892. After 1905, it became the capital of Italian Somaliland.