Lalibela
After the city of Aksum, Lalibela is modern Ethiopia's holiest city and a center of pilgrimage for much of the country. Unlike Ethiopia's main holy city, the population of Lalibela is very nearly 100% Ethiopian Orthodox Christian.
The rural town is known around the world for its monolithic churches, which were built during the reign of St. Lalibela (a member of the Zagwe Dynasty that ruled the Ethiopian Empire after the depredations of the Felasha leader Gudit in the late 1100s and early 1200s. Contrary to certain spurious myths, the great rock-hewn churches of Lalibela were not built with the help of the Knights Templar and are monuments to the greatness of medieval Ethiopian civilization. (This is testified to by the presence of many architectural deocrations and styles similar to those of the ancient Ethiopian capital city of Aksum.)
During St. Lalibela's reign the current town of Lalibela was town as "Roha". "Lalibela" itself means "the bees recognise his sovereignty". The Saint-king was given this name due to a swarm of bees that surrounded him at his birth, which his mother took as a sign of his future reign as King of Kings of Ethiopia. The names of several places in the modern town and the general layout of the monolithic churches themselves are said to mimic names and patterns observed by St. Lalibela during the time he spent in Jerusalem and the Holy Land as a youth.