Metehara ( am, መተሐራ, om, Mataharaa) is a town in central

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the Er ...

. Located in the East Shewa Zone of the

Oromia Region Oromia (Amharic: ) ( om, Oromiyaa) is a Regions of Ethiopia, regional state in Ethiopia and the homeland of the Oromo people. The capital of Oromia is Addis Ababa. It is bordered by the Somali Region to the east; the Amhara Region, the Afar ...

, it has a latitude and longitude of with an elevation of 947 meters above sea level. Access to Metehara includes a station on the Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway. There is a Tuesday livestock market. Notable local landmarks include Metehara Mikael Bet church,

Mount Fentale Fentale is a stratovolcano located in Awash National Park which was found in the Oromia Region, Ethiopia. It is the highest point of Fentale woreda. Philip Briggs describes Mount Fentale as being crowned by a 350 meter deep crater. Br ...

to the north,

Awash National Park Awash National Park is a national park in Ethiopia. Located at the border of Oromia state and Afar state, the park covers an area of 827 square kilometers, most of it lies at an altitude of 900 meters. Spanning across the southern tip of the ...

to the northeast, and Lake Basaka to the south of the town. The town is inhabited by the Karrayyu Oromo,

Afar Afar may refer to: Peoples and languages *Afar language, an East Cushitic language *Afar people, an ethnic group of Djibouti, Eritrea, and Ethiopia Places Horn of Africa *Afar Desert or Danakil Desert, a desert in Ethiopia *Afar Region, a region ...

Somali Somali may refer to: Horn of Africa * Somalis, an inhabitant or ethnicity associated with Greater Somali Region ** Proto-Somali, the ancestors of modern Somalis ** Somali culture ** Somali cuisine ** Somali language, a Cushitic language ** Soma ...

Dir clans (

Issa Issa or ISSA may refer to: Acronyms and abbreviations *Independent Schools Sports Association, now known as the Sports Association for Adelaide Schools *Information Systems Security Association *Instituto Superior de Secretariado y Administracion ...

and

Gadabuursi The Gadabuursi ( Somali: ''Gadabuursi'', Arabic: جادابورسي), also known as ''Samaroon'' ( Arabic: ''قبيلة سَمَرُون)'', is a northern Somali clan, a sub-division of the Dir clan family. The Gadabuursi are geographically ...

) and Amhara.

History

Visitors to the area in the first decades of the 20th century frequently described the area as land between the Karrayyu Oromo,

Dir clans (

and

) and Amhara."Local History in Ethiopia"
(pdf) The Nordic Africa Institute website (accessed 3 January 2008)

settlers from the

and

migrated to this region towards the end of the era of

Emperor An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife ( empress consort), mother ( e ...

Menelik II , spoken = ; ''djānhoi'', lit. ''"O steemedroyal"'' , alternative = ; ''getochu'', lit. ''"Our master"'' (pl.) Menelik II ( gez, ዳግማዊ ምኒልክ ; horse name Abba Dagnew ( Amharic: አባ ዳኘው ''abba daññäw''); 17 ...

. Later their numbers increased as relatives and kinsmen took permanent settlement there. On the eve of the Italian invasion, a German named Neitzel had been granted a concession to cultivate cotton and

coffee Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world. Seeds of ...

. Despite that, few people lived in the area until the arrival of the Dutch corporation Handelsvereeningung Amsterdam (HVA), which established a factory to process sugar at Metehara, after it had been expelled from

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

in 1954. In 1970, the Karrayyu Oromo staged an armed demonstration in Metehara which destroyed fences and buildings at the HVA plantation. The

Derg The Derg (also spelled Dergue; , ), officially the Provisional Military Administrative Council (PMAC), was the military junta that ruled Ethiopia, then including present-day Eritrea, from 1974 to 1987, when the military leadership formally " c ...

announced 3 February 1975 that the sugar plantation, including the Dutch investments, would be fully nationalized. During the 2002 drought, a Karrayyu Oromo leader was killed in Metehara, which increased tensions between the Karrayyu Oromo and

Afar people The Afar ( aa, Qafár), also known as the Danakil, Adali and Odali, are a Cushitic-speaking ethnic group inhabiting the Horn of Africa. They primarily live in the Afar Region of Ethiopia and in northern Djibouti, as well as the entire southern ...

s. As a result the Afar, who traded at the Tuesday market, did not go to the market during that drought.

Demographics

Based on figures from the Central Statistical Agency in 2005, Metehara has an estimated total population of 21,348 of whom 10,763 were men and 10,585 were women.CSA 2005 National Statistics
, Table B.4 The 1994 national census reported this town had a total population of 11,934 of whom 5,837 were males and 6,097 were females. It is the largest town in

Fentale Fentale is one of the districts in the Oromia of Ethiopia. Part of the East Shewa Zone located in the Great Rift Valley, Fentale is bordered on the southeast by the Arsi Zone, on the southwest by Boset, on the northwest by the Amhara Region, and o ...

woreda Districts of Ethiopia, also called woredas ( am, ወረዳ; ''woreda''), are the third level of the administrative divisions of Ethiopia – after '' zones'' and the '' regional states''. These districts are further subdivided into a number of ...

Notes

{{reflist Populated places in the Oromia Region Populated lakeshore places in Ethiopia