Jan Amora
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Jan Amora (
Amharic Amharic is an Ethio-Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amhara people, and also serves as a lingua franca for all other metropolitan populati ...
: ጃን አሞራ ''jān āmōrā'', meaning "Royal eagle") is one of the
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 ...
s in 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 ...
of
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 ...
. Part of the
Semien Gondar Zone North Gondar (Amharic: ሰሜን ጎንደር; or Semien Gondar) is a zone in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia. This zone is named for the city of Gondar, the capital of Ethiopia until the mid-19th century. Geography North Gondar is bordered on the ...
, Jan Amora is bordered on the south by
Misraq Belessa Misraq Belessa (Amharic: ምስራቅ በለሳ) transliterated as "East Belessa" is one of the woredas in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia. It is named after the former province of Belessa, which lay in the same area. Part of the Semien Gondar Zone, ...
, on the southwest by
Wegera Wegera or Wogera (Amharic: ወገራ), is a woreda in Amhara Region, Ethiopia. Wegera is named for the former province Wegera, which was located roughly in the same location, and was later made part of the province of Semien. Part of the Semien ...
, on the west by Debarq, on the north by Addi Arkay and
Tselemt Tselemt (Amharic: ጠለምት) is one of the woredas in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia. Located at the northeastern point of the Semien Gondar Zone, Telemt is bordered on the south by Beyeda, on the southwest by Jan Amora, on the west by Addi Ar ...
, on the east by Beyeda, and on the southeast by
Wag Hemra Zone Wag Hemra (Amharic: ዋግ ኽምራ) is a Zone in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia. Its name is a combination of the former province of Wag, and the dominant local ethnic group, the Kamyr (or "Hemra") Agaw. Wag Hemra is bordered on the south by ...
. The administrative center of Jan Amora is Mekane Berhan.


Overview

The old sub-province and modern
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 ...
were named after one of the medieval
Ethiopian Empire The Ethiopian Empire, historically known as Abyssinia or simply Ethiopia, was a sovereign state that encompassed the present-day territories of Ethiopia and Eritrea. It existed from the establishment of the Solomonic dynasty by Yekuno Amlak a ...
's best fighting regiments. An early mention of Jan Amora was when
Baeda Maryam I Baeda Maryam I (; Bäˀəda Maryam, meaning "He who is in the hand of Mary"; 1448 – 8 November 1478), otherwise known as Cyriacus was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1468 to 1478, and a member of the Solomonic dynasty. His reign was characterized by ...
, who was campaigning against the now extinct Dobe'a in modern
Afar region The Afar Region (; ; ), formerly known as Region 2, is a Regions of Ethiopia, regional state in northeastern Ethiopia and the homeland of the Afar people. Its capital is the planned city of Semera, which lies on the paved Awash, Ethiopia, Awash ...
, had called upon them after his regular troops were defeated, with them being eager to participate in the campaign. The
place name Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of '' toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage, and types. ''Toponym'' is the general term for a proper nam ...
Jan Amora appears in the ''Futuh al-Habasha'' and in an 18th-century legal text, but it is unclear if they refer to the place that became this woreda; Richard Pankhurst believes that this "Jan Amora" was located south of Tekezze river. The military formation known as "Jan Amora" was later under the command of Emperor
Lebna Dengel Dawit II (;  – 2 September 1540), also known by the macaronic name Wanag Segad (ወናግ ሰገድ, ''to whom the lions bow''), better known by his birth name Lebna Dengel (, ''essence of the virgin''), was Emperor of Ethiopia from 150 ...
's uncle Azaj Fanoel. The Jan Amora region today covers the
Semien Mountains The Simien Mountains (Amharic: ስሜን ተራራ or Səmen; also spelled Semain, Simeon and Semien), in northern Ethiopia, north east of Gondar in Amhara region, are part of the Ethiopian Highlands. They are a World Heritage Site (since 1978) a ...
and a portion of their southern slopes, which makes access to this woreda difficult. A road linking Jan Amora and Debarq, 60 kilometers in length, was under construction in May 1994. Due to its inaccessibility and the lack of the most basic infrastructure, in 1999 the Regional government classified Addi Arkay as one of its 47 drought-prone and food-insecure woredas. To alleviate this situation, the Amhara Credit and Saving Institution SC, a
micro-finance Microfinance consists of financial services targeting individuals and small businesses (SMEs) who lack access to conventional banking and related services. Microfinance includes microcredit, the provision of small loans to poor clients; saving ...
institution, opened an office in the woreda in the late 1990s. The
Semien Mountains The Simien Mountains (Amharic: ስሜን ተራራ or Səmen; also spelled Semain, Simeon and Semien), in northern Ethiopia, north east of Gondar in Amhara region, are part of the Ethiopian Highlands. They are a World Heritage Site (since 1978) a ...
cover most of the northern part of this woreda, as well as the
Semien Mountains National Park Simien Mountains National Park is the largest National parks in Ethiopia, national park in Ethiopia. Located in the North Gondar Zone of the Amhara Region, its territory covers the highest parts of the Simien Mountains and includes Ras Dasha ...
.


Demographics

Based on the 2007 national census conducted by 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 (CSA), this woreda has a total population of 167,757, an increase of 33.65% over the 1994 census, of whom 84,456 are men and 83,301 women; 5,057 or 3.01% are urban inhabitants. With an area of 1,737.24 square kilometers, Jan Amora has a population density of 96.57, which is greater than the Zone average of 63.76 persons per square kilometer. A total of 36,361 households were counted in this woreda, resulting in an average of 4.61 persons to a household, and 35,389 housing units. The majority of the inhabitants practiced
Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church () is the largest of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. One of the few Christian churches in Africa originating before European colonization of the continent, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church dates bac ...
, with 94.8% reporting that as their religion, while 5.2% of the population said they were
Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...
. The 1994 national census reported a total population for this woreda of 125,516 in 26,918 households, of whom 63,335 were men and 62,181 women; 1,584 or 1.26% of its population were urban dwellers at the time. The largest ethnic group reported in Jan Amora was the Amhara (99.8%), and
Amharic Amharic is an Ethio-Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amhara people, and also serves as a lingua franca for all other metropolitan populati ...
was spoken as a first language by 99.76%. The majority of the inhabitants practiced
Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church () is the largest of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. One of the few Christian churches in Africa originating before European colonization of the continent, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church dates bac ...
, with 93.81% reporting that as their religion, while 6.1% of the population said they were
Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...
.


Tourism

Simien Mountains National Park is one of the national parks of Ethiopia. Located Jan Amora and Debarq Semien (North) Gondar Zone of the Amhara Region, its territory covers the Simien Mountains and includes Ras Dashan, the highest point in Ethiopia. It is home to a number of endangered species, including the Ethiopian wolf and the walia ibex, a wild goat found nowhere else in the world. The gelada baboon and the caracal, a cat, also occur within the Simien Mountains Although the word ''Semien'' means "north" in
Amharic Amharic is an Ethio-Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amhara people, and also serves as a lingua franca for all other metropolitan populati ...
, according to Richard Pankhurst the ancestral form of the word actually meant "south" in Ge'ez, because the mountains lay to the south of
Aksum Axum, also spelled Aksum (), is a town in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia with a population of 66,900 residents (as of 2015). It is the site of the historic capital of the Aksumite Empire. Axum is located in the Central Zone of the Tigray Regi ...
, which was at the time the center of Ethiopian civilization. But as over the following centuries the center of Ethiopian civilization itself moved to the south, these mountains came to be thought of as lying to the north, and the meaning of the word likewise changed. The Semiens are remarkable as being one of the few spots in Africa where
snow Snow consists of individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere—usually within clouds—and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes. It consists of frozen crystalline water througho ...
regularly falls. First mentioned in the ''
Monumentum Adulitanum The ''Monumentum Adulitanum'' is the name for two Greek inscriptions from Adulis, the major port city in the modern day Eritrea Kingdom of Aksum. The two Greek inscriptions are known, respectively, as Monumentum Adulitanum I and Monumentum Adulitan ...
'' of the 4th century AD (which described them as "inaccessible mountains covered with snow" and where soldiers walked up to their knees in snow), the presence of snow was undeniably witnessed by the 17th century Jesuit priest
Jerónimo Lobo Jerónimo Lobo (1595 – 29 January 1678) was a Portuguese Jesuit missionary. He took part in the unsuccessful efforts to convert Ethiopia from the native Ethiopian church to Roman Catholicism until the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1643. Afterw ...
. Although the later traveler
James Bruce James Bruce of Kinnaird (14 December 1730 – 27 April 1794) was a Scottish traveller and travel writer who physically confirmed the source of the Blue Nile. He spent more than a dozen years in North and East Africa and in 1770 became the fir ...
claims that he had never witnessed snow in the Semien Mountains, the 19th century explorer Henry Salt not only recorded that he saw snow there (on 9 April 1814), but explained the reason for Bruce's failure to see snow in these mountains – Bruce had ventured no further than the foothills into the Semiens.Henry Salt, ''A Voyage to Abyssinia and Travels into the Interior of that Country'', 1814 (London: Frank Cass, 1967), p. 352. The Walia ibex is another animal that is native to Jan Amora. The ibex is from the goat family, and currently there are 1200 in Jan Amora. This endangered species is found in only semien Mountains Debark and Jan Amora. Jan Amora also is home to two of some of the most endangered animals the Simien jackal and the Ethiopian wolf. The population of these recently animals is increasing to about 10% every year Jan Amora is also the place for Ethiopian monkey Gelada with large populations in the
Semien Mountains The Simien Mountains (Amharic: ስሜን ተራራ or Səmen; also spelled Semain, Simeon and Semien), in northern Ethiopia, north east of Gondar in Amhara region, are part of the Ethiopian Highlands. They are a World Heritage Site (since 1978) a ...
. The Gelada live with other large group Monkeys. These Gelada only found in Ethiopia not other else. These Gelada mainly eat grass but the Male gelada eat other animals' meat. When both blades and seeds are available, geladas prefer the seeds. They also eat flowers, rhizomes and roots when available. At night, they sleep on the ledges of cliffs. At sunrise, they leave the cliffs and travel to the tops of the plateaus to feed and socialize. When morning ends, social activities tend to wane and the geladas primarily focus on foraging. They will travel during this time, as well. When evening arrives, geladas exhibit more social activities before descending to the cliffs to sleep.Over 474,000 tourists visited
Semien Mountains The Simien Mountains (Amharic: ስሜን ተራራ or Səmen; also spelled Semain, Simeon and Semien), in northern Ethiopia, north east of Gondar in Amhara region, are part of the Ethiopian Highlands. They are a World Heritage Site (since 1978) a ...
during the first nine months of the current Ethiopian fiscal year, from Britain, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain and Italy and among others country. Ethiopia generates $252 million revenue from tourism in
Semien Mountains The Simien Mountains (Amharic: ስሜን ተራራ or Səmen; also spelled Semain, Simeon and Semien), in northern Ethiopia, north east of Gondar in Amhara region, are part of the Ethiopian Highlands. They are a World Heritage Site (since 1978) a ...
in 2006 to 2011.


Notable people from Jan Amora

* Abuna Salama III *
Dejazmach Until the end of the Ethiopian monarchy in 1974, there were two categories of nobility in Ethiopia and Eritrea. The Mesafint ( , modern transcription , singular መስፍን , modern , "prince"), the hereditary royal nobility, formed the upper ...
Wube Haile Maryam


Notes

{{Districts of the Amhara Region Districts of Amhara Region