Tenta is a town in northern

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

Debub Wollo Zone South Wollo (Amharic: ደቡብ ወሎ) is a zone in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia. It acquired its name from the former province of Wollo. South Wollo is bordered on the south by North Shewa and the Oromia Region, on the west by East Gojjam, ...

of the

Amhara Region The Amhara Region ( am, አማራ ክልል, Åmara Kilil), officially the Amhara National Regional State (), is a regional state in northern Ethiopia and the homeland of the Amhara people. Its capital is Bahir Dar which is the seat of the Reg ...

, Tenta has a latitude and longitude of with an elevation of above sea level. It is one of three towns in Tenta

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 ...

. A notable landmark in this town is the church dedicated to St. Michael, which was constructed at the patronage of

Negus Negus (Negeuce, Negoose) ( gez, ንጉሥ, ' ; cf. ti, ነጋሲ ' ) is a title in the Ethiopian Semitic languages. It denotes a monarch,

Mikael around 1899, who made this town his headquarters. It is unusual for having three altars: one dedicated to St. Michael, another to St. Tekle Haymanot, and the third to the

Holy Trinity The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the F ...

. Three different masses are said to be celebrated simultaneously in this church. In a nearby mausoleum Negus Mikael is buried with his second wife Zennebech and two sons by his first wife, Ali and Desta.

History

The missionary

Johann Ludwig Krapf Johann Ludwig Krapf (11 January 1810 – 26 November 1881) was a German missionary in East Africa, as well as an explorer, linguist, and traveler. Krapf played an important role in exploring East Africa with Johannes Rebmann. They were the first ...

visited Tenta 22 March 1842, when it was the residence of Imam Liban of the Were Himano, a "House" or a sub-group of the

Wollo Oromo Wollo ( Amharic: ወሎ) was a historical province of northern Ethiopia that overlayed part of the present day Amhara, Afar, and Tigray regions. During the Middle Ages this region was known as Bete Amhara and had Amhara kings. Bete Amhara had ...

. The settlement was surrounded by a ditch and wall, with a single entrance for security. As for the size of Tenta, Krapf states it was "a small village, containing about 600 inhabitants. A market is held here every week, and many articles are brought for sale." Tenta is also the birthplace of the unlucky Emperor

Iyasu V ''Lij'' Iyasu ( gez, ልጅ ኢያሱ; 4 February 1895 – 25 November 1935) was the designated Emperor of Ethiopia from 1913 to 1916. His baptismal name was Kifle Yaqob (ክፍለ ያዕቆብ ''kəflä y’aqob''). Ethiopian emperors traditio ...

, the son of Negus Mikael, who was born there 4 February 1895 or 1896. A Swedish missionary who visited Tenta in the early 1930s found the settlement to be a strange little "king's town" surrounded by meter-high stone walls in three curves inside each other. On one side having a steep rock face, no wall was necessary."Local History in Ethiopia"
The Nordic Africa Institute website (accessed 16 December 2007) The settlement had an Italian garrison until 19 May 1941 when it surrendered to Colonel Anderson, but in its final months it was under siege by ''

arbegnoch The Arbegnoch () were Ethiopian resistance fighters in Italian East Africa from 1936 until 1941. They were known to the Italians as shifta. Organisation The Patriot movement was mostly based in the rural Shewa, Gondar and Gojjam provinces, th ...

'' fighters. Tenta was subjected to an air attack during the

Ethiopian Civil War The Ethiopian Civil War was a civil war in Ethiopia and present-day Eritrea, fought between the Ethiopian military junta known as the Derg and Ethiopian-Eritrean anti-government rebels from 12 September 1974 to 28 May 1991. The Derg overthre ...

in November 1989 but escaped fatalities; however, in a second air attack on 4 January 1990, two were killed.

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, Tenta has an estimated total population of 4,022 of whom 1,996 are men and 2,206 are women.CSA 2005 National Statistics
Table B.3 The 1994 census reported this town had a total population of 2,320 of whom 1,050 were men and 1,270 were women.

Notes

{{reflist Populated places in the Amhara Region