Wereta

Coordinates: 11°55′N 37°42′E / 11.917°N 37.700°E / 11.917; 37.700
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Woreta
Town
Woreta is located in Ethiopia
Woreta
Woreta
Location within Ethiopia
Coordinates: 11°55′N 37°42′E / 11.917°N 37.700°E / 11.917; 37.700
CountryEthiopia
RegionAmhara
ZoneDebub Gondar
Elevation
1,828 m (5,997 ft)
Population
 (2005)
 • Total26,317
Time zoneUTC+3 (EAT)

Woreta (also transliterated as Wereta) is a town in northern Ethiopia. Located in the Debub Gondar Zone of the Amhara Region, east of Lake Tana and south of Addis Zemen, this town has a latitude and longitude of 11°55′N 37°42′E / 11.917°N 37.700°E / 11.917; 37.700 with an elevation of 1828 meters above sea level. It is the administrative center of Fogera woreda.

History[edit]

Wereta appears in the Royal chronicles during the first reign of Emperor Tekle Giyorgis (1779-1784), as the place whence Ras Hailu Eshte fled after escaping imprisonment in Gondar.[1]

Wereta was included as one of the stages of the Gondar-Boso trade route of the 1840s, located immediately south of the Reb River, according to a list compiled by Antoine Thomson d'Abbadie in his Geodesie d'Ethiopie.[2]

20th Century

In 1967, telephone service reached Wereta, and in 1978, the town received electricity.

In the 1990s, a new campus for the Wereta College of Agriculture was designed by National Consultants (chief architect Assefa Bekele), with a proposed budget of 60 million Birr.[3] Located on top of a hill next to the road to Bahir Dar, the college has a capacity of 2000 students and graduated 269 students in 2004.[4]

Wereta has two elementary schools, one high school, as well as vocational schools.

Demographics[edit]

Based on figures from the Central Statistical Agency in 2005, Wereta has an estimated total population of 26,317, of whom 13,044 were males and 13,273 were females.[5] Previously, the 1994 census reported the town had a total population of 15,181 of whom 6,863 were males and 8,313 were females.

Transport[edit]

Two trans-African automobile routes pass through Wereta:

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ H. Weld Blundell, The Royal chronicle of Abyssinia, 1769-1840 (Cambridge: University Press, 1922), p. 336
  2. ^ G.W.B. Huntingford, Historical Geography of Ethiopia from the first century AD to 1704 (London: British Academy, 1989), p. 255
  3. ^ "Local History in Ethiopia" The Nordic Africa Institute website (accessed 20 December 2007)
  4. ^ "Fogera Pilot Learning Site Diagnosis and Program Design" IPMS Information Resources Portal - Ethiopia (January 2005), p. 8 (accessed 10 March 2009)
  5. ^ CSA 2005 National Statistics, Table B.4