Dejen (also transliterated Dajen) is a town in west-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

Misraq Gojjam Zone East Gojjam (Amharic: ምሥራቅ ጎጃም), also called Misraq Gojjam, is a zone in Amhara Region of Ethiopia. Its capital is Debre Markos. East Gojjam is named after the former province of Gojjam. East Gojjam is bordered on the south by the ...

of the

Amhara Region The Amhara Region (), officially the Amhara National Regional State (), is a Regions of Ethiopia, regional state in northern Ethiopia and the homeland of the Amhara people, Amhara, Awi people, Awi, Xamir people, Xamir, Argobba people, Argobba, a ...

on the edge of the canyon of the Abay, it has a latitude and longitude of and an elevation between 2421 and 2490 meters above sea level. It is the administrative center of Dejen

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 ...

. Between 1954 and 1967, the town acquired telephone service. Dejen is a checkpoint for traffic crossing regional boundaries. Because of the enforced waiting time, there are several restaurants and hotels catering to waiting travellers."Local History in Ethiopia"
The Nordic Africa Institute website (accessed 8 August 2009) The

Ethiopian Roads Authority The Ethiopian Road Transport Authority (Amharic: የኢትዮጵያ መንገዶች ባለስልጣን, formerly called Road Transport Administration or RTA) is a public transport authority based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Ethiopia, offici ...

announced 22 July 2009 that it had paved the 41 kilometers of road between Dejan and Gohatsion in

Wara Jarso Wara Jarso () is a woreda in the Oromia Region, Ethiopia. Part of the North Shewa Zone, Wara Jarso is bordered on the south by Kuyu, on the west by the Muger River which separates it from the West Shewa Zone, on the north by the Abay River which ...

. In August 2008, the Derba

MIDROC Mohammed International Development Research and Organization Companies (MIDROC) is an Ethiopian mining and oil company owned by Ethiopian-born Saudi billionaire Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi. It has operations in Europe, the Middle East, and A ...

Company opened a small cement factory Dashin cement factory on the outskirts of the town, which produces 4,000 qtls of cement per day. Some of the output of this factory will be used in the construction of the larger

Derba The Derba (), also known as Derbe (; , ''Cerbe'') or Dzherba (), is a river in Yakutia (Sakha Republic), Russia. It is a tributary of the Lena with a length of — counting the Mas-Turukhtaakh at its head— and a drainage basin area of . Th ...

Midroc Cement Factory, which will be located 70 kilometers north of

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 is expected to be the largest cement factory in Ethiopia. North Holdings Investment announced 17 October 2009 that it had completed a feasibility study for its own cement factory at Dejen, which would be built on 450 hectares of land. Construction of the factory will cost around US$1.6 billion, and once completed it would have a production capacity of nine million tons a year.

History

Dejen is named after the traditional district it lies in, Dejen, which is best known as where Admas Mogasa, the widow of Emperor Menas, raised the future Emperor

Susenyos Susenyos I ( ; –1575 – 17 September 1632), also known as Susenyos the Catholic, was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1607 to 1632, and a member of the Solomonic dynasty. His throne names were Seltan Sagad and Malak Sagad III. He was the son of '' ...

and instructed him in "the doctrine of the holy books."

P. H. G. Powell-Cotton P. is an abbreviation or acronym that may refer to: * Page (paper), where the abbreviation comes from Latin ''pagina'' * Paris Herbarium, at the ''Muséum national d'histoire naturelle'' * ''Pani'' (Polish), translating as Mrs. * The ''Pacific Rep ...

, who camped there in March 1900, described Dejen as "a little village of a dozen huts or so perched on the steep side of the valley of the Mogga, and only remarkable as being the first village on the Gojam side" of the Abay. The town was subjected to long-distance shelling on 16 April 1991, after its capture by the

Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front The Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF; ) was an ethnic federalist political coalition in Ethiopia that existed from 1989 to 2019. It consisted of four political parties: Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), Amhara ...

, and six people were killed. By the end of August 2021, an internal note of the EU delegation in Ethiopia mentioned that the

Oromo Liberation Army The Oromo Liberation Army (OLA; , WBO) is an armed opposition group active in the Oromia Region of Ethiopia. The OLA consists primarily of former armed members of the pre-peace deal Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) who refused to disarm out of skep ...

had established itself around the Blue Nile gorge, with a check point on the main road between

and

Bahir Dar Bahir Dar () is the capital city of Amhara Region, Ethiopia. Bahir Dar is one of the leading tourist destinations in Ethiopia, with a variety of attractions in the nearby Lake Tana and Blue Nile river. The city is known for its wide avenues li ...

near the bridge at Dejen.

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 ...

in 2005, Dejen has an estimated total population of 15,483, of whom 7,688 are men and 7,795 are women.CSA 2005 National Statistics
Table B.3 The 1994 census reported this town had a total population of 8,930 of whom 4,045 were men and 4,885 were women.

Notes

{{reflist Populated places in the Amhara Region