Baidoa (Arabic: بَيْطَبَوْ, Somali (Af-Maxaa): Baydhabo, Maay: Baydhowy) is the largest city of the South West State of Somalia.

Menelik II of Ethiopia invaded Baidoa in the late 19th century, but was pushed back under Sultan Osman Ahmed rule.

[8] The Australian contingent of Unified Task Force UNISOM1, running the Baidoa Humanitarian Relief Sector from January 1993, found themselves dealing primarily with the 'Somali Liberation Army' Duduble sub-clan of Aideed's USC.

"[9] They remained in control of Baidoa until around January 1996, while the local Rahanweyn Resistance Army militia continued to engage the USC in the town's environs.

[7] In 2002, the RRA's leader Hasan Muhammad Nur Shatigadud founded the Southwestern State of Somalia regional administration, with its headquarters in Baidoa.

The creation of the autonomous state was a move to show the RRA leadership's disaffection with the nascent Mogadishu-based Transitional National Government, which had been established two years earlier.

[15] In December 2006, Ethiopian troops entered Somalia to assist the TFG against the advancing Islamic Courts Union,[16] initially winning the Battle of Baidoa.

[18] On 8 January 2007, for the first time since taking office, President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed entered Mogadishu from Baidoa to engage in consultations with local business, religious and civil society representatives as the TFG moved its base to the national capital.

Some of the more radical elements, including al-Shabaab, regrouped to continue its insurgency against the TFG and oppose the Ethiopian military's presence in Somalia.

Throughout 2007 and 2008, Al-Shabaab scored military victories, seizing control of key towns and ports in both central and southern Somalia.

[22] Two simultaneous political processes for the establishment of a new Southwestern State of Somalia were underway: one led by former Parliament Speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan, which proposed a three region state consisting of the Bay, Bakool and Lower Shabelle provinces; another led by convention organizer Malaq Ali Shino, former MP Madobe Nunow Mohamed and erstwhile Bay region Governor Abdifatah Geesey, which proposed instead the re-establishment of a six region Southwestern Somalia state consisting of the Bay, Bakool, Lower Shabelle, Gedo, Middle Jubba and Lower Jubba provinces.

[7] Additionally, Baidoa is the heartland of Maay, an Afro-Asiatic language principally spoken by the Digil and Mirifle (Rahanweyn) clans in the southern regions of Somalia.

[27] However, Maay speakers often use Standard Somali as a lingua franca,[26] which is learned via mass communications, internal migration and urbanization.

Plans are also in the works to construct a new campus in an area around 15 km north of Baidoa, as well as two new branches in two other principal cities in the Bay region.