Kofele is a town in Oromia Region

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 ...

, and the administrative center of the

Kofele Kofele is a town in Oromia Region Ethiopia, and the administrative center of the Kofele woreda. Located in the West Arsi Zone of the Oromia Region, this town has a latitude and longitude of with an elevation of 2695 meters above sea level. Accor ...

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 ...

. Located in the

West Arsi Zone West Arsi ( Oromo: ''Arsii Lixaa/Dhihaa'') is a zone in the Oromia Region of Ethiopia. This zone is named after a subgroup of the Oromo, who inhabit it. It covers an area of 11,776.72 km2, divided into 12 districts (''weredas''). The population ...

of the

Oromia Region Oromia (Amharic: ) ( om, Oromiyaa) is a 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 Region and the Benish ...

, this town has a latitude and longitude of with an elevation of 2695 meters above sea level. According to the Oromia Regional government, there are two telephone stations and a

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...

agent in Kofele. Primary, junior secondary and senior secondary schools are present, as well as medical and veterinary clinics. Although electricity is available, there are no fuel stations. Recently there are financial institution such as banks that are installing their branches in Kofele.

History

Kofele was founded on the orders of Balambaras Chakiiso Tuuri in the 1910s; Waako Oborra laid out the market where the town has since occupied. The community was important at the beginning as an assembly point for long-distance caravans because of its water, grazing and strategic location. In the 1930s,

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

missionaries operated a small school in Kofele; they returned to the town after the Italian occupation. By 1956, however, the road connecting Kofele to Shashamene remained so poor that it took 6 hours to drive the 25 kilometers. In one of his many published accounts of life in Kofele, P.T.W. Baxter records that in the 1969 Parliamentary elections that the two-seat constituency which included Kofele returned two

Arsi Oromo Arsi Oromo is an ethnic Oromo branch, inhabiting the Oromia Region, mainly in the Arsi, West Arsi and Bale Zones of Ethiopia, as well as in the Adami Tullu and Jido Kombolcha woreda of East Shewa Zone. They claim to have descended from Sikko ...

members. Although Arsi made up the overwhelming majority of the electorate, this was the first time that two Arsi had been elected, Baxter explains, "because more Arssi had been persuaded to register and to vote." However the provincial governor ruled the results improper, disqualified one of the candidates, and ordered a fresh election. In the second election, Arsi Oromo voters were intimidated, and the majority prevented from voting with the result that a Christian northerner was elected. "The defeated candidate was transformed from a traditionalist and Government time-server into a tribal martyr," Baxter notes.Baxter
"Ethiopia's Unacknowledged Problem: The Oromo"
''African Affairs'', Vol. 77 (July, 1978), pp. 294f

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 growth ...

in 2005, this town has an estimated total population of 13,127 of whom 6,690 are men and 6,437 are women. The 1994 national census reported this town had a total population of 2,563 of whom 1,252 were men and 1,311 were women.

Notes

{{reflist Populated places in the Oromia Region