Awash Subah is a
market town
A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village or city. In Britain, small rural ...
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 ...
. Located in
Administrative Zone 3 of 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 pave ...
, above a
gorge
A canyon (from ; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), or gorge, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosion, erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tenden ...
on the
Awash River
The Awash (sometimes spelled Awaash; Oromo: ''Awaash'', Amharic: አዋሽ, Afar: ''We'ayot'', Somali: ''Webiga Dir'') is a major river of Ethiopia. Its course is entirely contained within the boundaries of Ethiopia and empties into a chain of i ...
, after which the town is named, the town lies on the
Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway, which crosses the gorge by a bridge there. It is the largest settlement in
Awash Fentale 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 ...
.
Awash lies outside the
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 ...
, which is known for its
wildlife
Wildlife refers to domestication, undomesticated animal species (biology), species, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wilderness, wild in an area without being species, introduced by humans. Wildlife was also synonymous ...
, for the
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. Brigg ...
caldera
A caldera ( ) is a large cauldron-like hollow that forms shortly after the emptying of a magma chamber in a volcano eruption. When large volumes of magma are erupted over a short time, structural support for the rock above the magma chamber is ...
and for the
Filwoha Hot Springs. Its market is held on Mondays, where Afar and Kereyu crafts can be foun
ref name=NAI-we
"Local History in Ethiopia" The Nordic Africa Institute website
Archivedat the
Wayback Machine
The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, California. Created in 1996 and launched to the public in 2001, it allows the user to go "back in time" and see ...
on February 28, 2008.
History
An iron bridge over the Awash had been built at the present location of Awash by Emperor
Menelik II's favorite,
Alfred Ilg
Alfred Heinrich Ilg (30 March 1854 – 7 January 1916) was a Swiss engineer and First Minister of State to Ethiopian Emperor Menelik II. He was born in Frauenfeld, Switzerland and died in Zurich.
Early life
In 1854, Ilg was born into a poor ho ...
, around 1890; this bridge replaced an earlier wooden one. The construction had to face the great difficulty of transporting the girders from
Djibouti
Djibouti, ar, جيبوتي ', french: link=no, Djibouti, so, Jabuuti officially the Republic of Djibouti, is a country in the Horn of Africa, bordered by Somalia to the south, Ethiopia to the southwest, Eritrea in the north, and the Red ...
, but once the material had arrived, the structure had been finished in ten days; however Emperor Menelik had used for other purposes the cement imported from Europe to build the bridge with. When Count Gleichen encountered the bridge in 1897, during his mission to Emperor Menelik, he found "the bridge would be too weak to stand anything but ordinary pack-animal traffic. For nine months in the year it is blocked at each end by a broad
abattis
An abatis, abattis, or abbattis is a field fortification consisting of an obstacle formed (in the modern era) of the branches of trees laid in a row, with the sharpened tops directed outwards, towards the enemy. The trees are usually interlaced ...
of thorn-bush, - to prevent people from using it when the river is fordable, - but during the rains it is left open."
[
Awash grew up around the railroad station, which was opened not long after 1917 when the railway had reached this far into Ethiopia. A hotel for passengers was built in Awash about that time. The fourth post office in Ethiopia (after ]Harar
Harar ( amh, ሐረር; Harari: ሀረር; om, Adare Biyyo; so, Herer; ar, هرر) known historically by the indigenous as Gey (Harari: ጌይ ''Gēy'', ) is a walled city in eastern Ethiopia. It is also known in Arabic as the City of Saint ...
, Dire Dawa
Dire Dawa ( am, ድሬዳዋ, om, Dirree Dhawaa, 3=Place of Remedy; so, Diridhaba, meaning "where Dir hit his spear into the ground" or "The true Dir", ar, ديري داوا,) is a city in eastern Ethiopia near the Oromia and Somali Re ...
and Addis Ababa
Addis Ababa (; am, አዲስ አበባ, , new flower ; also known as , lit. "natural spring" in Oromo), is the capital and largest city of Ethiopia. It is also served as major administrative center of the Oromia Region. In the 2007 census, t ...
) was established in Awash on 1 September 1923, but it may not have been much of a point of origin and arrival but rather a place on the line between the capital and the coast.[
During the Italian occupation, Awash still provided a post office, a telegraph station, the hotel, and restaurant. The town was occupied in April 1941 by the 22nd East African Brigade of the ]King's African Rifles
The King's African Rifles (KAR) was a multi-battalion British colonial regiment raised from Britain's various possessions in East Africa from 1902 until independence in the 1960s. It performed both military and internal security functions within ...
, who had advanced for three days from Dire Dawa. Elements of this brigade afterwards continued their advance across the Awash at this point on 3 April 1941, although the road and rail bridge had been demolished by the retreating Italians. By 1953, the bridge had been rebuilt.[
One of the five camps to train conscripts of the People's Militia (reconstituted in the spring of 1977 as the "Red Army") was located at Awash.
]
Rail disaster
On January 13, 1985, a train derailed at Awash on the Ethio-Djibouti Railways
The Ethio-Djibouti Railway (french: Chemin de Fer Djibouto-Éthiopien, C.D.E.; ) is a metre gauge railway in the Horn of Africa that once connected Addis Ababa to the port city of Djibouti. The operating company was also known as the Ethio- ...
plunging four of its five carriages into a ravine; the crash was estimated to have killed at least 428 and injured 500 of the estimated 1,000 on board. It was the worst rail accident in African history. It is believed that the cause of the crash was the excessive speed of the train round a curve on a bridge across the ravine. The derailment happened at 13:40 between Arba and Awash.[
]
Demographics
Based on figures from 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 growt ...
in 2005, Awash has an estimated total population of 11,053, of whom 5,748 are men and 5,305 were women.CSA 2005 National Statistics
, Table B.3, which calls the town Awash Sebat Kilo. According to the 1994 national census, the town had a population of 8,684.
Notes
External links
{{coord, 8, 59, 40, N, 40, 10, 00, E, region:ET-AF_type:city(11053), display=title
Populated places in the Afar Region
Awash River