Āfdem ()is a town is east central

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

. Located in the

Sitti Zone Sitti Zone (), formerly known as Shinile, is a List of zones of Ethiopia, zone in Somali Region of Ethiopia. Located at the northwestern point of the Somali Region and stretching across the savanna north of the Ahmar Mountains, Sitti is borde ...

of the

Somali Region The Somali Region (, , ), also known as Soomaali Galbeed () and officially the Somali Regional State, is a Regions of Ethiopia, regional state in eastern Ethiopia. It is the largest region of Ethiopia. The state borders the Ethiopian regions ...

. It is located 59 km east of Shinile. It is the administrative center of Afdem

woreda Districts of Ethiopia, also called woredas (; ''woreda''), are the third level of the administrative divisions of Ethiopia – after ''List of zones of Ethiopia, zones'' and the ''Regions of Ethiopia, regional states''. These districts are f ...

. It sprawls on a wide basin surrounded by granitic mountains on all sides. Āfdem lies at the base of its namesake Mount Afdem, a volcanic cone with a denuded caldera. Postal service for the town began at least as early as 1944; Āfdem had phone service by 1967."Local History in Ethiopia"
(pdf) The Nordic Africa Institute website (accessed 25 February 2009) Āfdem is served by a

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

on the Addis Ababa - Djibouti Railway.

History

The time of the Italian occupation of

, the steam engines were Littorina replaced locomotives, which shortened the travel time between

Addis Ababa Addis Ababa (; ,) is the capital city of Ethiopia, as well as the regional state of Oromia. With an estimated population of 2,739,551 inhabitants as of the 2007 census, it is the largest city in the country and the List of cities in Africa b ...

and

Dire Dawa Dire Dawa (; , meaning"where the Dir (clan), Dir hit his spear into the ground" or "The true Dir", , Harari language, Harari: ድሬዳዋ, lit. "Plain of Medicine"; ) is a city in eastern Ethiopia near the Somali Region and Oromia, Oromo borde ...

from two days to one day. The trains stopped now about noon on Awash, and the station Afdem therefore lost in importance. In 1984 the village had 805 inhabitants. Āfdem was given an important boost with the arrival of the railway. By the early 1930s, the town had an important railway station because trains traveling both directions would pass each other there. Town amenities included a telegraph station and a good restaurant with some hotel rooms. By 1962, Āfdem was located on a dry-weather that ran from Mieso to Gota.

Climate

Āfdem features a Semi arid but is influenced by the highland that are close by and gets around 600mm of rainfall a year so the land is somewhat well watered with warm, but hot, summers and cool

winter Winter is the coldest and darkest season of the year in temperate and polar climates. It occurs after autumn and before spring. The tilt of Earth's axis causes seasons; winter occurs when a hemisphere is oriented away from the Sun. Dif ...

s. The town is known for its pleasant climate during the summer periods. Between mid May and early September. The annual high temperature is an average of 27.7 °C and low 13.5 °C.

Demographics

Based on figures from the

Central Statistical Agency The Central Statistical Agency, also known as the Ethiopian Statistical Service (ESS; Amharic: የኢትዮጵያ ስታቲስቲክስ አገልግሎት), is an Ethiopian government agency designated to provide all surveys and censuses for that ...

of Ethiopia published in 2005, Āfdem has an estimated total population of 2,129 of whom 1,092 are men and 1,037 women. The town's inhabitants belong to various mainly

Afro-Asiatic The Afroasiatic languages (also known as Afro-Asiatic, Afrasian, Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic) are a language family (or "phylum") of about 400 languages spoken predominantly in West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of th ...

-speaking ethnic groups, with the Issa Somali predominant. The 1997 census reported this town had a total population of 1,428 of whom 721 were men and 707 women. The three largest ethnic groups reported in this town were the Somali (69.54%), the Oromo (20.93%), and the Amhara (7.63%); all other ethnic groups made up the remaining 1.9% of the residents.''1994 Population and Housing Census of Ethiopia: Results for Somali Region, Vol. 1''
Tables 2.4, 2.14 (accessed 10 January 2009). The results of the 1994 census in the Somali Region were not satisfactory, so the census was repeated in 1997.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Afdem Populated places in the Somali Region