Mekane Selam is a town in central Ethiopia

Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

. Located in the Debub Wollo Zone

Debub Wollo Zone

Debub Wollo is one of 10 Zones in the Ethiopian Amhara Region. It acquired its name from the former province of Wollo.Debub Wollo is bordered on the south by Semien Shewa and the Oromia Region, on the west by Mirab Gojjam, on the northwest by Debub Gondar, on the north by Semien Wollo and on the...

 of the Amhara Region

Amhara Region

Amhara is one of the nine ethnic divisions of Ethiopia, containing the homeland of the Amhara people. Previously known as Region 3, its capital is Bahir Dar....

, this town has a latitude and longitude of 10°38′N 38°47′E with an elevation of 1827 meters above sea level. It is the administrative center of Debre Sina

Debre Sina (woreda)

Debre Sina is one of the 105 woredas in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia. Part of the Debub Wollo Zone, Debre Sina is bordered on the south by Wegde, on the west by the Abbay River which separates it from the Misraq Gojjam Zone, on the north by Sayint, and on the east by Legambo...

 woreda

Woreda

Woreda is an administrative division of Ethiopia , equivalent to a district . Woredas are composed of a number of Kebele, or neighborhood associations, which are the smallest unit of local government in Ethiopia...

.

Mekane Selam hosts an airport

Mekane Selam Airport

Mekane Selam Airport is an airport serving Mekane Selam, a town in the Debub Wollo zone of the Amhara region in central Ethiopia. Its single runway is approximately in length....

 ( IATA code MKS) with an unpaved runway, the destination of scheduled flights by Ethiopian Airlines

Ethiopian Airlines

Ethiopian Airlines , formerly Ethiopian Air Lines, often referred to as simply Ethiopian, is an airline headquartered on the grounds of Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It serves as the country's flag carrier, and is wholly owned by the Government of Ethiopia...

. The airport has not been operational for the last seven eight years. It is also reportedly the westernmost community accessible by car in Wollo

Wollo

Wollo was a historical region and province in the northeastern part of Ethiopia, with its capital city at Dessie. The province was named after the Wollo Oromo, who settled in this part of Ethiopia in the 17th century...

. The nearby geology is characterized by an outcropping of basalt

Basalt

Basalt is a common extrusive volcanic rock. It is usually grey to black and fine-grained due to rapid cooling of lava at the surface of a planet. It may be porphyritic containing larger crystals in a fine matrix, or vesicular, or frothy scoria. Unweathered basalt is black or grey...

ic rocks that have been reused in local buildings.

History

The Swedish geologist Erik Nilsson visited Mekane Selam (which he called Agibar) during the first half of 1933, where he spent some time with the province's governor, Dejazmach Workneh.

Mekane Selam was the site where 8,000 Italian

Italian East Africa

Italian East Africa was an Italian colonial administrative subdivision established in 1936, resulting from the merger of the Ethiopian Empire with the old colonies of Italian Somaliland and Italian Eritrea. In August 1940, British Somaliland was conquered and annexed to Italian East Africa...

 soldiers surrendered in May, 1941. These were the remnants of 51 battalions which had managed to escape from Gojjam

Gojjam

Gojjam was a kingdom in the north-western part of Ethiopia, with its capital city at Debre Marqos. This region is distinctive for lying entirely within the bend of the Abbay River from its outflow from Lake Tana to the Sudan...

 ahead of Gideon Force

Gideon Force

The Gideon Force was a small British-led African regular force which acted as a Corps d'Elite amongst the irregular Ethiopian forces fighting the Italian occupation forces in Ethiopia during the East African Campaign of World War II...

, and were trapped in the town when Wilfred Thesiger

Wilfred Thesiger

Sir Wilfred Patrick Thesiger, CBE, DSO, FRAS, FRGS was a British explorer and travel writer born in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia.-Family:...

 completed a 50-mile march in 24 hours with his men and seized the ridge connecting two hills the Italians had intended to use for their retreat.

Demographics

Based on 2005 figures from the Central Statistical Agency

Central Statistical Agency (Ethiopia)

The Central Statistical Agency 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, as well as to act as an official training center in that field. It is part of the Ethiopian Ministry of Finance and...

, Mekane Selam has an estimated total population of 8,481 of whom 4,119 were males and 4,362 were females. The 1994 census reported this town had a total population of 4,901 of whom 2,167 were males and 2,734 were females.