Tanqua Millash () is a

district A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or county, counties, several municipality, municipa ...

in the

Tigray Region The Tigray Region, officially the Tigray National Regional State, is the northernmost regional state in Ethiopia. The Tigray Region is the homeland of the Tigrayan, Irob, and Kunama people. Its capital and largest city is Mekelle. Tigray ...

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 the Central Tigray zone, Tanqua Millash is a newly created district from parts of the Tanqua Abergelle and Dogu’a Tembien distrcits in 2020. Agbe is the capital of this district.

Geography

The literal translation of Tanqua Millash is "beyond (south of) Tanqua River". Agriculture forms the mainstay of Tanqua Millash’s economic life. As elsewhere in most districts of Tembien, social services were hardly developed until the 1990s. After that, schools and health centers of the calling have emerged. The backwardness was partly attributed to the region's relative geographic remoteness from the center.

History

Tanqua Millash was a constituent of the old Tembien awrajja. In 2020, the earlier district Abergele became inoperative and its territory belongs to the following new districts: *Abergele (new, smaller, district) *Tanqua Millash district (part of it) Tanqua Millash comprises the municipalities of Simret,

Menachek Menachek is a ''tabia'' or municipality in the Tanqua Millash district of the Tigray Region of Ethiopia. The ''tabia'' centre is in Addi Bayro village (also called "Debre Birhan"). Until January 2020 it belonged to the Dogu'a Tembien district. ...

and

Mizan Mizan ( ar, ميزان, lit=balance) is a concept in Quran, which has been described as "the principle of the middle path" and "the overarching divine principle for organizing our universe". Azizah Y. al-Hibri argues that ''Mizan'', as the "divine ...

which were transferred from

Dogu'a Tembien Dogu'a Tembien (, "Upper Tembien", sometimes transliterated as Degua Tembien) is a woreda in Tigray Region, Ethiopia. It is named in part after the former province of Tembien. Nowadays, the mountainous district is part of the Southeastern Tigray ...

Rock churches

Tanqua Millash holds several rock-hewn or

monolithic church A monolithic church or rock-hewn church is a church made from a single block of stone. Because freestanding rocks of sufficient size are rare, such edifices are usually hewn into the ground or into the side of a hill or mountain. They can be of ...

es. They have literally been hewn from rock, probably before the 10th C. CE, One such church is located along the slopes of the Degua Tembien massif. The Kidane Mihret rock church of Addi Nefas () is hewn from

Adigrat sandstone The Adigrat Sandstone formation in north Ethiopia, in a wide array of reddish colours, comprises sandstones with coarse to fine grains, and locally conglomerates, silt- and claystones. Given the many lateritic palaeosols and locally fossil wood ...

. Further up, in the municipalities of Simret,

and

that were recently transferred from Degua Tembien to Tanqua Millash, there are an additional eight rock churches and natural caves with a church at its entrance. Affluent to May Selelo at Adenna

Agriculture

Cropping

A sample enumeration performed by the CSA in 2001 interviewed 15,123 farmers in this district, who held an average of 1.63 hectares of land. Of the 24,690 hectares of private land surveyed, 87% was in cultivation, 0.2% pasture, 11% fallow, and 1.7% was devoted to other uses. For the land under cultivation in this district, 82% was planted in cereals, 2.3% in pulses, 3% in oilseeds, and 0.02% in vegetables. Four hectares were planted in fruit trees and 18 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. ...

. Land tenure in this district is distributed amongst 85% owning their land, and 15% renting; the percentage reported as holding their land under other forms of tenure is missing."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)

Livestock

In 2001, 89% of the farmers both raised crops and livestock, while 10% only grew crops and 0.5% only raised livestock. Abergele_cattle

Mainly used for draught, among the different cattle landraces in Tigray, Jointly with Abergele, Tanqua Millash holds its own landrace, the small and resistant

Abergele cattle The Abergele cattle are the smallest breed of cattle in north Ethiopia. They are reared in the Abergele lowlands and at the southwestern lower slopes of Dogu'a Tembien district. Abergele cattle are part of the Zenga breed group. The Abergele br ...

. Other landraces include the

Arado cattle The red and black coated Arado cattle are small and hardy. They are the most common cattle variety in the north Ethiopian highlands. The Arado breed is part of the Zenga breed group. It is essentially reared for draught power, particularly tillag ...

, the widely dominant variety of adjacent districts. In addition, long-horned Raya oxen are purchased from Southern Tigray as draught animals.

Notes

{{Districts of the Tigray Region Districts of Tigray Region