Zewditu was formally crowned Empress of Ethiopia in a grand ceremony at Addis Ababa on February 11, 1917.
On February 11, 1917, Zewditu underwent her formal coronation ceremony in Addis Ababa, cementing her position as reigning Empress of Ethiopia. The elaborate ceremony, conducted according to ancient Ethiopian Orthodox Christian rites, symbolically linked her to the Solomonic dynasty's legendary descent from King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, a lineage central to Ethiopian imperial legitimacy.
The coronation was attended by nobles, high clergy, and foreign dignitaries, and it formally established the dual power structure of her reign: Zewditu as Empress with religious and ceremonial authority, and her regent, Ras Tafari Makonnen, managing much of the day-to-day governance and foreign policy. This arrangement reflected the tensions between traditionalist and modernizing forces within the Ethiopian court.
Her coronation was a landmark moment not only for Ethiopia but for the broader narrative of women's leadership globally in the early twentieth century, at a time when female heads of state were exceedingly rare anywhere in the world. Zewditu's reign, formalized by this ceremony, would last until her death in 1930, during which she worked to preserve Ethiopian sovereignty and Orthodox traditions amid growing pressures for modernization and increasing European colonial interest in the Horn of Africa.