French Somaliland (, lit. "French Coast of Somalis"; ; , ʾArḍ Aṣ-Ṣūmāl Al-Fransī) was a French colony in the Horn of Africa. It was established between 1883 and 1887, after the ruling Somali and Afar sultans signed the land away in various treaties with the French. The construction of the Imperial Ethiopian Railway west into Ethiopia turned the port of Djibouti into a boomtown of 15,000 at a time when Harar was the only city in Ethiopia to exceed that. Although the population fell after the completion of the line to Dire Dawa and the original company failed and required a government bail-out, the rail link allowed the territory to quickly supersede the caravan-based trade carried on at Zeila (then in the British area of Somaliland) and become the premier port for coffee and other goods leaving southern Ethiopia and the Ogaden through Harar.