Dergajen (or ''Derge Agen'') was a

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 ...

Enderta Province Enderta or Inderta () is a former Provinces of Ethiopia, historical province of Ethiopia; it is located in the eastern edge of the Tigray Region, Tigray highlands. Enderta is bordered on the west by Tembien Province, Tembien, on the south and sout ...

, in

Tigray Region The Tigray Region (or simply Tigray; officially the Tigray National Regional State) is the northernmost Regions of Ethiopia, regional state in Ethiopia. The Tigray Region is the homeland of the Tigrayan, Irob people, Irob and Kunama people. I ...

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 ...

. Its administrative center was Kwiha; now is a tabia (municipality) located 19 kilometers east of Kwiha,

. The administrative center of the tabia is located in the village of Aragure. A weekly market is organized in Aragure. According to the 2007 census, 9524 people were living in the tabia, which results in a population density of 68 inhabitants per square kilometer.

Geography

Dergajen is located on the hydrographic divide between the Tekeze catchment in the west and the endoreic Afar basin to the east. The western part of Dergajen consists of gentle slopes descending in a western direction. These slopes have an elevation of 2400 to 2600 meters above sea level. The eastern part of the tabia consists of steep slopes, descending into the Afar lowlands. The administrative center is located in Aragure, a village which is centrally located in the tabia. In 1938, Araguren counted approximately 700 inhabitants (including 5 Italians). At that time, there was a shop, a fountain, a telephone office and a health post. Araguren is located on the left bank of a river starting in the higher May Serakit reservoir and drains to the south-southwest to the large Chichat reservoir, which was built in 1984. The dam for the Mai Serakit reservoir was built between 2006 and 2009. In the southern part of the tabia a second large reservoir exists: the Hashenge reservoir which was built in 1996-97. A last reservoir, at the west, is

Arato Arato is a reservoir located in the Inderta woreda of the Tigray Region in Ethiopia. The earthen dam that holds the reservoir was built in 1997 by SAERT. Dam characteristics * Dam height: 20 metres * Dam crest length: 443 metres * Spillway wi ...

Geology and soils

The following geological formations are present in this locality: * Agula Shale * Mekelle

Dolerite Diabase (), also called dolerite () or microgabbro, is a mafic, holocrystalline, subvolcanic rock equivalent to volcanic basalt or plutonic gabbro. Diabase dikes and sills are typically shallow intrusive bodies and often exhibit fine-grain ...

Antalo Limestone The Antalo Limestone, also known as the Antalo Sequence, is a geological formation in Ethiopia. It is between 300 and 800 metres thick and comprises fossiliferous limestones and marls that were deposited in a reef. Marine microfossils have shown ...

Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), as well as the current and most recent of the twelve periods of the ...

alluvium Alluvium (, ) is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. Alluvium is also sometimes called alluvial deposit. Alluvium is ...

and freshwater

tufa Tufa is a variety of limestone formed when carbonate minerals precipitation (chemistry), precipitate out of water in ambient temperature, unheated rivers or lakes. hot spring, Geothermally heated hot springs sometimes produce similar (but less ...

The main

geomorphic Geomorphology () is the scientific study of the origin and evolution of topography, topographic and bathymetry, bathymetric features generated by physical, chemical or biological processes operating at or near Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. Ge ...

unit, with corresponding soil types is: * Gently undulating Agula

shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of Clay mineral, clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g., Kaolinite, kaolin, aluminium, Al2Silicon, Si2Oxygen, O5(hydroxide, OH)4) and tiny f ...

plateau with

dolerite Diabase (), also called dolerite () or microgabbro, is a mafic, holocrystalline, subvolcanic rock equivalent to volcanic basalt or plutonic gabbro. Diabase dikes and sills are typically shallow intrusive bodies and often exhibit fine-grain ...

** Dominant soil type: stony, dark cracking

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impuriti ...

s with good natural fertility (Vertic

Cambisol A Cambisol in the World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB) is a soil in the beginning of soil formation. The horizon differentiation is weak. This is evident from weak, mostly brownish discolouration and/or structure formation in the soil pro ...

) ** Associated soil types *** rock outcrops, stony and shallow soils (Lithic

Leptosol A Leptosol in the World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB) is a very shallow soil over continuous rock or a deeper soil that is extremely rich in coarse fragments (gravelly and/or stony). Leptosols cover approximately 1.7 billion hectares o ...

) *** red-brownish

loam Loam (in geology and soil science) is soil composed mostly of sand (particle size > ), silt (particle size > ), and a smaller amount of clay (particle size < ). By weight, its mineral composition is about 40–40–20% concentration of sand–si ...

y soils with good natural fertility (Chromic

Luvisol Luvisols are a group of soils, comprising one of the 32 Reference Soil Groups in the international system of soil classification, the World Reference Base for Soil Resources The World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB) is an international ...

) ** Inclusions *** deep, dark cracking

s on calcaric material with good fertility but poor drainage (

Vertisol A vertisol is a Soil Order in the USDA soil taxonomy and a Reference Soil Group in the World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB). It is also defined in many other soil classification systems. In the Australian Soil Classification it is c ...

)

Economy

The area gets relatively larger quantities of precipitation, due to its location on the eastern edge of the

Ethiopian Highlands The Ethiopian Highlands (also called the Abyssinian Highlands) is a rugged mass of mountains in Ethiopia in Northeast Africa. It forms the largest continuous area of its elevation in the continent, with little of its surface falling below , whil ...

. The economy is based on agro-pastoral

agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

. The main crops are

barley Barley (), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains; it was domesticated in the Fertile Crescent around 9000 BC, giving it nonshattering spikele ...

and

wheat Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...

. Secondary crops are

teff ''Teff'' (), also known as ''Eragrostis tef'', Williams lovegrass, or annual bunch grass, is an annual grass, a species of lovegrass native to Ethiopia, where it first originated in the Ethiopian Highlands. It is cultivated for its edible seed ...

and

lentil The lentil (''Vicia lens'' or ''Lens culinaris'') is an annual plant, annual legume grown for its Lens (geometry), lens-shaped edible seeds or ''pulses'', also called ''lentils''. It is about tall, and the seeds grow in Legume, pods, usually w ...

s. The wheat and teff is mostly traded in

Mekelle Mekelle (), or Mek'ele, is a List of zones of Ethiopia, special zone and capital city, capital of the Tigray Region of Ethiopia. Mekelle was formerly the capital of Enderta province, Enderta Awrajja, awraja in Tigray Province, Tigray. It is locate ...

. From January to August, barley and wheat are imported from Mekelle.
Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Commission (DPPC), 2006. Tigray Livelihood Zone Reports. The livestock of the people living in the tabia usely grazes in the Afar lowlands.

Administrative divisions

With an area of approximately 139 square kilometers, Dergajen used to be a district of the

Enderta province Enderta or Inderta () is a former Provinces of Ethiopia, historical province of Ethiopia; it is located in the eastern edge of the Tigray Region, Tigray highlands. Enderta is bordered on the west by Tembien Province, Tembien, on the south and sout ...

already in Imperial times. In those times,

Qwiha Kwiha (in Italian colonial spelling Quiha, in recent years by some writers misunderstood as Qwiha without any basis in local spelling and pronunciation) is a town located in Tigray Regional State, Ethiopia. Quiha has the biggest airport in Tigra ...

functioned as administrative center for the district ''Dergajen'', while

was the capital of the Enderta province. Nowadays, the administrative divisions have changed. The Enderta province became obsolete and the Enderta name only denotes the former core area of the province, the actual Enderta woreda. As the former center, Mekelle, was carved out of this district and given its proper Special Zone, Qwiha became the center of the remaining Enderta district. Just as with Enderta, Dergajen is not a district (or woreda) anymore, but just a municipality (although one of the largest of the Enderta district).

References

{{coord, 13, 30, , N, 39, 41, , E, type:municipality, display=title Populated places in the Tigray Region