Gamu-Gofa was a

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...

in the southern part of

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 ...

, named after two of the

ethnic group An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...

s living within its boundaries, the Gamo and the Gofa. First incorporated into Ethiopia by Emperor

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 A ...

in the 1880s , its capital was first at Chencha, then around 1965 the capital was moved to

Arba Minch Arba Minch (formerly called Ganta Garo) is a city and separate woreda in the southern part of Ethiopia. "Arba Minch" means "40 Springs", originated from the presence of more than 40 springs. It is located in the Gamo Zone of the Southern Natio ...

. This province was bordered on the west and north by Kaffa, on the north and east by Sidamo, on the southeast by

Lake Chew Bahir Lake Chew Bahir (Amharic: ጨው ባሕር ''č̣ew bāhir'', "salty lake") or Lake Istifanos, also called Stefanie, Basso Naebor and Chuwaha, is a lake in southern Ethiopia, located on the southwestern end of the Southern Nations, Nationalities ...

, and on the south by

Kenya ) , national_anthem = "Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi , ...

and

Lake Turkana Lake Turkana (), formerly known as Lake Rudolf, is a lake in the Kenyan Rift Valley, in northern Kenya, with its far northern end crossing into Ethiopia. It is the world's largest permanent desert lake and the world's largest alkaline lake. B ...

. Gamu-Gofa Province came into existence as a result of Proclamation 1943/1, which created 12 ''taklai ghizat''s from the existing 42 provinces of varying sizes.Bereket Habte Selassie
"Constitutional Development in Ethiopia", ''Journal of African Law''
10 (1966), p. 79. The number of former provinces comes from the map in Bahru Zewde, ''A History of Modern Ethiopia'', second ed. (Oxford: James Currey, 2001), p. 86. With the adoption of the new constitution in 1995, Gamu-Gofa was reorganized into the Semien Omo and

Debub Omo Zone South Omo Zone (or Debub Omo Zone) is a List of zones of Ethiopia, zone in the Ethiopian Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' Region (SNNPR). Debub Omo is bordered on the south by Kenya, on the southwest by the South Sudan, on the west by ...

s of the

Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region The Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region (often abbreviated as SNNPR; am, የደቡብ ብሔር ብሔረሰቦችና ሕዝቦች ክልል, Yädäbub Bḥer Bḥeräsäbočna Hzboč Kllə) is a regional state in southwestern E ...

of Ethiopia.

References

Provinces of Ethiopia Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region States and territories disestablished in 1995 States and territories established in the 1880s {{SouthernNationsET-geo-stub