Argobba (or Argoba) is a special woreda in the

Afar Region The Afar Region (; aa, Qafar Rakaakayak; am, አፋር ክልል), formerly known as Region 2, is a 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 ...

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 ...

. This woreda is named after the

Argobba people The Argobba are an ethnic group inhabiting Ethiopia. A Muslim community, they are spread out through isolated village networks and towns in the northeastern and eastern parts of the country. Group members have typically been astute traders and me ...

, whose homeland lies in this district. Located on the eastern escarpment of the

Ethiopian highlands The Ethiopian 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 , while the summits reach heights of up to . ...

, Argobba is bordered on the south, west and north by the

, and on the east by Dulecha. Settlements in this woreda include Gachine. The average elevation in this woreda is 471 meters above sea level. , Argobba has 10 kilometers of all-weather gravel road and 77.5 kilometers of community roads; about 41% of the total population has access to drinking water.

Demographics

Based on the 2007 Census conducted by the

Central Statistical Agency The Central Statistical Agency (CSA; Amharic: ማዕከላዊ ስታቲስቲክስ ኤጀንሲ) is an agency of the government of Ethiopia designated to provide all surveys and censuses for that country used to monitor economic and social growth ...

of Ethiopia (CSA), this woreda has a total population of 21,794, of whom 11,645 are men and 10,149 women; with an area of 393.93 square kilometers, Argobba has a population density of 55.32. While 2,166 or 9.94% are urban inhabitants, this woreda is unusual for the

in having no pastoralists. A total of 3,195 households were counted in this woreda, which results in an average of 6.8 persons to a household, and 3,397 housing units. 83.38% of the population said they were

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

, and 16.26% were

Orthodox Christians Orthodoxy (from Greek: ) is adherence to correct or accepted creeds, especially in religion. Orthodoxy within Christianity refers to acceptance of the doctrines defined by various creeds and ecumenical councils in Antiquity, but different Churc ...

Agriculture

A sample enumeration performed by the CSA in 2001 interviewed 540 farmers in this woreda, who held an average of 5.28 hectares of land. Of the 2.85 square kilometers of private land surveyed, 84.92% was under cultivation, 3.89% pasture, 9.72% fallow, and 1.47% was devoted to other uses; the percentage in woodland was missing. For the land under cultivation in this woreda, 88.71% is planted in cereals like

maize Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...

and

sorghum ''Sorghum'' () is a genus of about 25 species of flowering plants in the grass family (Poaceae). Some of these species are grown as cereals for human consumption and some in pastures for animals. One species is grown for grain, while many othe ...

, 24.06% in pulses, 10.52% in vegetables, and 2.07% in root crops. Permanent crops included 1 hectare planted in coffee, 4 in

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. ...

or hops, 1 in sugar cane, 12.79 in fruit trees, and 9.96 in

banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa''. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", distinguis ...

s. 10.37% of the farmers both raise crops and livestock, while 50.74% only grow crops and 38.89% only raise livestock. Land tenure in this woreda is distributed between 81.59% own their land, 16.35% rent, and the remaining 2.07% are held under other forms of tenure."Central Statistical Authority of Ethiopia. Agricultural Sample Survey (AgSE2001). Report on Area and Production - Afar Region. Version 1.1 - December 2007"
(accessed 26 January 2009)

Notes

{{Districts of the Afar Region Afar Region Special woredas of Ethiopia