Tahtay Maychew (, "Lower Salty Water") is 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 ...

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 ...

. Part of the Mehakelegnaw (Central) Zone, Tahtay Maychew is bordered on the south by

Naeder Adet Naeder Adet () is a Districts of Ethiopia, woreda in Tigray Region, Ethiopia. Part of the Maekelay Zone, Naeder Adet is bordered on the south by the Wari River which separates it from Kola Tembien, on the west by Semien Mi'irabawi Zone, Semien Mi' ...

, on the west by the Semien Mi'irabawi (North Western) Zone, on the north by Mereb Lehe, and on the east by La'ilai Maychew. The administrative center of this woreda is Wukro Marai; other towns in Tahtay Maychew include Chila.

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 99,122, an increase of 26.17% over the 1994 census, of whom 48,623 are men and 50,499 women; 11,187 or 11.29% are urban inhabitants. With an area of 1,954.29 square kilometers, Tahtai Maichew has a population density of 50.72, which is less than the Zone average of 56.29 persons per square kilometer. A total of 22,096 households were counted in this woreda, resulting in an average of 4.49 persons to a household, and 21,545 housing units. The majority of the inhabitants said they 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 96.76% reporting that as their religion, while 3.22% of the population 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 78,562, of whom 38,801 were men and 39,761 were women; 5,272 or 6.71% of its population were urban dwellers. The largest ethnic group reported in Tahtai Maichew was the

Tigrayan The Tigrayan people (, ''Təgaru'') are a Semitic-speaking ethnic group indigenous to the Tigray Region of northern Ethiopia. They speak the Tigrinya language, an Afroasiatic language belonging to the Ethiopian Semitic branch. The daily life ...

(99.87%).

Tigrinya Tigrinya may refer to: * Tigrinya language Tigrinya, sometimes romanized as Tigrigna, is an Ethio-Semitic languages, Ethio-Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic languages, Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It i ...

was spoken as a first language by 99.94%. 96.43% of the population practiced

, and 3.5% were

. Concerning

education Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education als ...

, 11.52% of the population were considered literate, which is less than the Zone average of 14.21%; 9.41% of children aged 7–12 were in primary school; 0.11% of the children aged 13–14 were in junior secondary school, and 0.05% of the inhabitants aged 15–18 were in senior secondary school. Concerning

sanitary conditions Sanitation refers to public health conditions related to clean drinking water and treatment and disposal of human excreta and sewage. Preventing human contact with feces is part of sanitation, as is hand washing with soap. Sanitation systems a ...

, about 1.6% of the urban houses and 3% of all houses had access to safe drinking water at the time of the census; about 13% of the urban and 3% of the total had toilet facilities.

Agriculture

A sample enumeration performed by the CSA in 2001 interviewed 17,931 farmers in this woreda, who held an average of 0.68 hectares of land. Of the 12,159 hectares of private land surveyed, 92.05% was in cultivation, 0.55% pasture, 4.24% fallow, 0.11% woodland, and 3.04% was devoted to other uses. For the land under cultivation in this woreda, 74.91% was planted in cereals, 15.16% in pulses, 1.02% in oilseeds, and 0.16% in vegetables.

Gesho ''Rhamnus prinoides'', the shiny-leaf buckthorn, is an African shrub or small tree in the family Rhamnaceae. Commonly referred to as "gesho" it was first scientifically described by French botanist Charles Louis L'Héritier de Brutelle in 1789. ...

was planted in 25 hectares; the area planted in fruit trees is missing. 73.34% of the farmers both raised crops and livestock, while 25.06% only grew crops and 1.6% only raised livestock. Land tenure in this woreda is distributed amongst 89.99% owning their land, 9.66% renting, and 0.35% under other forms of tenure."Central Statistical Authority of Ethiopia. Agricultural Sample Survey (AgSE2001). Report on Area and Production - Tigray Region. Version 1.1 - December 2007"
(accessed 26 January 2009)

Surrounding woredas

Notes

{{Districts of the Tigray Region Districts of Tigray Region