Aleta Wendo (also known as Wendo) is a town in southern
Ethiopia
Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...
. Located in a fertile and forested area near
Lake Abaya
Lake Abaya (Amharic: አባያ ሐይቅ) is a lake in the South Ethiopia Regional State of Ethiopia. It is located in the Main Ethiopian Rift, east of the Guge Mountains.
The town of Arba Minch lies on its southwestern shore, and the souther ...
in the upper
Gidabo River basin, not far from the sources of the
Ganale Dorya and
Dawa River
Dawa or Dawah may refer to:
Places
China
*Dawa, Jilin, in Ningjiang District, Songyuan
*Dawa County (大洼县), Panjin, Liaoning
*Dawa, Dawa County, Liaoning
*Dawa, Changtu County, Liaoning
*Dawa Chik, One Month in (Tibetan)
Other countrie ...
s in the
Aleta Wendo Zone of the
Sidama Regional State, this town has a longitude and latitude of with an elevation of 2037 meters above sea level. It is the administrative center of
Aleta Wendo woreda
Districts of Ethiopia, also called woredas (; ''woreda''), are the third level of the administrative divisions of Ethiopia – after ''List of zones of Ethiopia, zones'' and the ''Regions of Ethiopia, regional states''.
These districts are f ...
.
This town has both telephone and postal service, and is supplied with electricity by the
Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation
Ethiopian Electric Power () is an Ethiopian electrical power industry and state-owned electric producer. It is engaged in development, investment, construction, operation, and management of power plants, power generation and power transmission. ...
from the national grid.
History
Dejazmach
Until the end of the Ethiopian monarchy in 1974, there were two categories of nobility in Ethiopia and Eritrea. The Mesafint ( , modern transcription , singular መስፍን , modern , "prince"), the hereditary royal nobility, formed the upper ...
Balcha Safo, Governor of
Sidamo, originally constructed his ''ketema'', or fortified camp, in Wendo, but he later moved it to
Hagere Selam.
["Local History in Ethiopia"]
The Nordic Africa Institute website (accessed 28 November 2007) While passing through the area in February 1909, Dr. Drake Brockman notes that the governor of Western Sidamo, Dejazmach
Tessema Nadew
''Ras Bitwoded'' Tessema Nadew (died 10 April 1911; horse name Abba Qamaw) was an Ethiopian military officer and politician who on 28 October 1909 was proclaimed as Ethiopia's future ''Balemulu Enderase'' (Regent Plenipotentiary)''Bālemulu'' li ...
, made this town (which he calls "Alata") his headquarters. American naturalists arrived at Wendo village on 29 December 1926, and camped outside the village for a while. Grazmach Kebede Dihala Mikael, the village potentate, implored them to camp near his house, explaining that there were plenty of ''
shifta
''Shifta'' originally was a word that had a heroic or ''anti-heroic'' connotation rather than a villainous character (similar to the historical romanticization of the legendary outlaw Robin Hood in western society), over time, the term has taken ...
s'' or outlaws in the area.
[
Wendo was occupied by the Italian Laghi Division on 30 November 1936. It was retaken by the 1st Gold Coast Regiment on 22 May 1941, without a single shot fired. The Allied forces accepted the surrender of a Brigadier General and some 3,000 prisoners.][
By 1958, Wendo was one of 27 places in Ethiopia ranked as a First Class Township. Telephone service reached the town within the next 10 years.][
]
Demographics
Based on figures from the Central Statistical Agency
The Central Statistical Agency, also known as the Ethiopian Statistical Service (ESS; Amharic: የኢትዮጵያ ስታቲስቲክስ አገልግሎት), is an Ethiopian government agency designated to provide all surveys and censuses for that ...
in 2005, Aleta Wendo has an estimated total population of 20,513, of whom 10,006 were males and 10,507 were females.CSA 2005 National Statistics
, Table B.4 According to the 1994 national census, the town had a population of 11,300.
Notes
{{Authority control
Populated places in Ethiopia
Sidama Region
Cities and towns in Ethiopia