Afgooye is a town in the Lower Shabelle region, about 30 km west of Mogadishu. The Shabelle River runs straight through it, splitting the town into two banks surrounded by irrigated farmland.

Historically the seat of the Geledi sultanate, Afgooye is known today for its green farms and for Istunka, the festival in which the two sides of the river face each other in a ritual stick fight every year.

In the 18th and 19th centuries Afgooye was the capital of the Geledi sultanate, which controlled trade between the Benadir coast and the river lands of the interior and wielded influence over the coastal ports of Mogadishu, Merca and Barawa.

Under Italian rule, when the colonial railway from Mogadishu reached the town, a railway bridge was built across the Shabelle here (1927–28). Nearby Lafoole gave its name to the Lafoole College of Education, the country's best-known teacher-training college, whose roots go back to 1963.

Istunka is an annual festival tied to Dabshid, the Somali solar new year, and the start of the harvest, usually in late July or early August. Residents of the western and eastern banks of the river face off with bundles of sticks until the elders call a halt and the two sides embrace, all to the sound of poetry, song and dance.

Irrigated by the Shabelle, Afgooye's farms grow fruit, vegetables and cereals for the nearby Mogadishu market, making it one of the most productive farming areas in the south. In the 1970s the government planned a new sugar-processing plant here.