Tepi (also transliterated Teppi and Tippi) is a town in southern Ethiopia. The vowels in the name are pronounced as in the English words ''tape'' and ''pea''. Located in the

Sheka Zone Sheka is a zone in the South West Region of Ethiopia. Sheka is bordered on the south by Bench Maji, on the west by the Gambela Region, on the north by the Oromia Region, and on the east by Keffa. The administrative center of Sheka is Masha. She ...

of the South West Ethiopia Region, this town has a latitude and longitude of with a mean elevation of 1,097 meters above sea level. The town is said to be named after a

Majangir The Majang people, or ''Majangir'', live in southwestern Ethiopia and speak a Nilo-Saharan language of the Surmic cluster. The 1998 census gave the total of the Majangir population as 15,341, but since they live scattered in the hills in dispersed ...

man who once had a bee hive in the large tree that stood in the marketplace.Unseth, Peter. 2010. Tepi. ''Encyclopaedia Aethiopica'', vol. 4, p. 920, edited by Siegbert Uhlig. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz

Overview

Tepi hosts an airport (

ICAO The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO, ) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that coordinates the principles and techniques of international air navigation, and fosters the planning and development of international a ...

code TIE;

IATA The International Air Transport Association (IATA ) is a trade association of the world's airlines founded in 1945. IATA has been described as a cartel since, in addition to setting technical standards for airlines, IATA also organized tariff ...

code HATP) with a long, smooth but unpaved runway, the destination of scheduled flights by Ethiopian Airlines since the 1960s. Since 1966, the town has had a medical clinic and the same year the road to Tepi was improved. Electricity became available in 1984. The town also has postal service. This town has long been a market and commercial center for the area. Construction of all-weather roads were begun in the late 1970s, and by 1988 they extended from Tepi in three directions: south to Mizan Teferi (built with Cuban help), southeast to Shishinda (toward

Bonga Bonga is a town, woreda and capital of the South West Ethiopia Peoples' Region in Ethiopia. Located in the Keffa Zone upon a hill in the upper Barta valley, it has a latitude and longitude of with an elevation of 1,714 meters above sea level. ...

), and north to

Gore Gore may refer to: Places Australia * Gore, Queensland * Gore Creek (New South Wales) * Gore Island (Queensland) Canada * Gore, Nova Scotia, a rural community * Gore, Quebec, a township municipality * Gore Bay, Ontario, a township on Manitouli ...

. An elementary school was begun in Tepi about the time the Italians left, and the town has had a high school since about 1980. In 2009 Mizan Tepi University opened its Faculty of Engineering and Science in Tepi Near the city is the Tepi Coffee Plantation Project, which is the second-largest coffee plantation in Ethiopia covering 6,205 hectares. Run by the state, it produces over 2,500 tonnes of raw arabica beans each year. The surrounding area is very hilly and was densely forested. The area claims to be Ethiopia’s center for turmeric, and also exports cardamom,

ginger Ginger (''Zingiber officinale'') is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or ginger, is widely used as a spice A spice is a seed, fruit, root, bark, or other plant substance primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices ...

corn Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...

honey Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of plants (primar ...

, beeswax, timber, sugar cane,

banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa''. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", distinguis ...

mango A mango is an edible stone fruit produced by the tropical tree ''Mangifera indica''. It is believed to have originated in the region between northwestern Myanmar, Bangladesh, and northeastern India. ''M. indica'' has been cultivated in South a ...

es, and other fruit. Due to the fly-borne disease trypanosomiasis, cattle do poorly in the area, so none are used for plowing. The disease also prevents equines (horses, donkeys, and mules) from being raised there. The town has Ethiopian Orthodox churches, a mosque, and Protestant churches. There is also a strong following of a local spirit cult following Bulafo and Ginabo. Northeast of the town is an inactive

shield volcano A shield volcano is a type of volcano named for its low profile, resembling a warrior's shield lying on the ground. It is formed by the eruption of highly fluid (low viscosity) lava, which travels farther and forms thinner flows than the more v ...

2728 meters in height, which volcanologists call Tepi.

History

People report that there had been a small Italian military presence there during World War II. The countryside around Tepi has long been multiethnic, including significant numbers of

, Shekkacho, Sheko, Kafficho, and Oromo. Most of the city's residents (or their parents) are from other parts of Ethiopia, adding even more ethnic groups to the mix.Sarah Vaughan
"Ethnicity and Power in Ethiopia"
(University of Edinburgh: Ph.D. Thesis, 2003), pp. 272ff In the 1980s, because of

famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, Demographic trap, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. Th ...

, many people from other provinces were resettled nearby. These acts have led to conflicts under ethnic federalism, since no ethnic group comprises a majority. There has been occasional armed conflict in the area since 1991, involving people from the surrounding area dividing along ethnic lines. In March 2002 between 600 and 800 persons were killed during clashes between the Majangir, Sheko, and Bench-Maji in and around the town of Tepi. Government officials reported 128 deaths; however, the Southern Ethiopia People's Democratic Coalition reported more than 1,700 deaths. More than 2,000 homes were destroyed and 5,800 persons were displaced as a result of the violence. The clashes involved local officials and members of each of these communities, and resulted from the dissatisfaction of many Sheko and Majangir who had wanted autonomy following an unsuccessful attempt in 1993 to move the Shekecho Zone from the SNNPR to the Gambela Region. While the Federal Government claimed to have arrested 41 policemen, 39 militia members, and 11 administrative officials for their participation in the clashes, it refused to allow an independent investigation of the incident and put the Federal Police in charge of the government's internal investigation. One campus of the new

Mizan - Tepi University 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 ...

is located in Tepi.

Demographics

The population of the immediate area has greatly increased since the 1970s and, based on 2005 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 ...

, this town has an estimated total population of 19,231, of whom 10,113 were males and 9,118 were females.CSA 2005 National Statistics
Table B.4 Tepi is the largest settlement in

Yeki Yeki is a woreda in South West Ethiopia Peoples' Region, Ethiopia. Part of the Sheka Zone, Yeki is bordered on the south by the Bench Maji Zone, on the west by the Gambela Region, on the north by Amderacha, and on the east by the Keffa Zone.The na ...

woreda.

Notes

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Relevant literature

*Legesse, Mengistu, Fekede Balcha, and Berhanu Erko. "Status of

onchocerciasis Onchocerciasis, also known as river blindness, is a disease caused by infection with the parasitic worm ''Onchocerca volvulus''. Symptoms include severe itching, bumps under the skin, and blindness. It is the second-most common cause of blindne ...

in Teppi area, Southwestern Ethiopia, after four years of annual community-directed treatment with ivermectin." ''Ethiopian Journal of Health Development'' 24, no. 1 (2010):51-56. *Simeon, James. 2019. The Teppi Outbreak: An Introduction to Smallpox. In James Skelton, Alan Schnur, Gene L. Bartley, John Scott Porterfield, eds. 101-114. ''Eradicating Smallpox in Ethiopia: Peace Corps Volunteers' Accounts of Their Adventures, Challenges and Achievements''. Peace Corps Writers. Populated places in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region Ethiopia Cities and towns in Ethiopia