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Somali Region



 
 
Somali ; is the eastern-most of the nine ethnic divisions
Regions of Ethiopia

Ethiopia is divided into 9 ethnically-based administrative regions and three chartered cities . The word "kilil" more specifically means "reservation" or "protected area" and the ethnicity basis of the regions and choice of the word "kilil" has drawn fierce criticism from Politics of Ethiopia, who have drawn comparisons to the bantustans of...
 (kililoch) of Ethiopia
Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country situated in the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia is bordered by Eritrea to the north, Sudan to the west, Kenya to the south, Somalia to the east and Djibouti to the northeast....
. It is often called Somalia, though it is not to be confused with the independent country of the same name
Somalia

Somalia , officially the Republic of Somalia and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic, is a country located in the Horn of Africa....
. Also known as Western Somali, the capital of Somali State is Jijiga
Jijiga

Jijiga is a city in eastern Ethiopia and the capital of the Somali Region of that country. Located in the Jijiga Zone approximately 80 km east of Harar and 60 km west of the border with the Republic of Somaliland , this city has a latitude and longitude of with an elevation of 1609 meters above sea level....
. The capital had been at Gode
Gode

Gode is a city in the Ethiopian part of the Ogaden. Located in the Gode Zone of the Somali Region, the city has a latitude and longitude of . Gode was the capital of the Somali Region from late 1992, to appease the powerful Ogaden clan, until early 1994 when it was moved to Jijiga, which had a better infrastructure and access to communicatio...
/Godey until April 1994, but due to political considerations it was moved.) Other major towns and cities include (the Somali spelling in brackets): Degehabur
Degehabur

Degehabur is a town in the eastern part of Ethiopia known as the Ogaden. Located in the Degehabur Zone of the Somali Region on the Jerer River, this town is 1044 meters above sea level....
 (Dhagaxbuur), Kebri Dahar
Kebri Dahar

Kebri Dahar is a town in the eastern part of Ethiopia known as the Ogaden. Located in the Korahe Zone of the Somali Region, this town has a latitude and longitude of and an elevation of 493 meters above sea level....
(Qabridahare), Shilavo
Shilavo

Shilavo is a town of the Ethiopian part of the Ogaden. Located in the Korahe Zone of the Somali Region, the town has a latitude and longitude of with an elevation of 395 meters above sea level....
 (Shilaabo), Geladin
Geladin

Geladin is a town in eastern Ethiopia. Located in the Werder Zone of the Somali Region, this town has a longitude and latitude of with an elevation between 427 and 530 meters above sea level....
, Kelafo
Kelafo

Kelafo is a town in eastern Ethiopia. Located in the Gode Zone of the Somali Region, this town has a longitude and latitude of and an elevation of 233 meters above sea level....
 (Qalaafe) Werder
Werder

Werder may refer to:...
 (Wardheer)and Shinile
Shinile

Shinile is a town in eastern Ethiopia. Located in the Shinile Zone of the Somali Region, this town has a latitude and longitude of with an elevation of 1079 meters above sea level....
 (shiniile).






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Somali ; is the eastern-most of the nine ethnic divisions
Regions of Ethiopia

Ethiopia is divided into 9 ethnically-based administrative regions and three chartered cities . The word "kilil" more specifically means "reservation" or "protected area" and the ethnicity basis of the regions and choice of the word "kilil" has drawn fierce criticism from Politics of Ethiopia, who have drawn comparisons to the bantustans of...
 (kililoch) of Ethiopia
Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country situated in the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia is bordered by Eritrea to the north, Sudan to the west, Kenya to the south, Somalia to the east and Djibouti to the northeast....
. It is often called Somalia, though it is not to be confused with the independent country of the same name
Somalia

Somalia , officially the Republic of Somalia and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic, is a country located in the Horn of Africa....
. Also known as Western Somali, the capital of Somali State is Jijiga
Jijiga

Jijiga is a city in eastern Ethiopia and the capital of the Somali Region of that country. Located in the Jijiga Zone approximately 80 km east of Harar and 60 km west of the border with the Republic of Somaliland , this city has a latitude and longitude of with an elevation of 1609 meters above sea level....
. The capital had been at Gode
Gode

Gode is a city in the Ethiopian part of the Ogaden. Located in the Gode Zone of the Somali Region, the city has a latitude and longitude of . Gode was the capital of the Somali Region from late 1992, to appease the powerful Ogaden clan, until early 1994 when it was moved to Jijiga, which had a better infrastructure and access to communicatio...
/Godey until April 1994, but due to political considerations it was moved.) Other major towns and cities include (the Somali spelling in brackets): Degehabur
Degehabur

Degehabur is a town in the eastern part of Ethiopia known as the Ogaden. Located in the Degehabur Zone of the Somali Region on the Jerer River, this town is 1044 meters above sea level....
 (Dhagaxbuur), Kebri Dahar
Kebri Dahar

Kebri Dahar is a town in the eastern part of Ethiopia known as the Ogaden. Located in the Korahe Zone of the Somali Region, this town has a latitude and longitude of and an elevation of 493 meters above sea level....
(Qabridahare), Shilavo
Shilavo

Shilavo is a town of the Ethiopian part of the Ogaden. Located in the Korahe Zone of the Somali Region, the town has a latitude and longitude of with an elevation of 395 meters above sea level....
 (Shilaabo), Geladin
Geladin

Geladin is a town in eastern Ethiopia. Located in the Werder Zone of the Somali Region, this town has a longitude and latitude of with an elevation between 427 and 530 meters above sea level....
, Kelafo
Kelafo

Kelafo is a town in eastern Ethiopia. Located in the Gode Zone of the Somali Region, this town has a longitude and latitude of and an elevation of 233 meters above sea level....
 (Qalaafe) Werder
Werder

Werder may refer to:...
 (Wardheer)and Shinile
Shinile

Shinile is a town in eastern Ethiopia. Located in the Shinile Zone of the Somali Region, this town has a latitude and longitude of with an elevation of 1079 meters above sea level....
 (shiniile). The region borders Kenya
Kenya

The Republic of Kenya is a country in East Africa. It is bordered by Ethiopia to the north, Somalia to the northeast, Tanzania to the south, Uganda to the west, and Sudan to the northwest, with the Indian Ocean running along the southeast border....
 to the south-west, the Ethopian regions of Oromia, Afar
Afar Region

Afar is one of the nine Regions of Ethiopia of Ethiopia, and is the homeland of the Afar people. Formerly known as Region 2, its current capital is Asayita; a new capital named Semera on the paved Awash - Asseb highway is under construction....
 and Dire Dawa
Dire Dawa

Dire Dawa is one of two Administrative_divisions_of_Ethiopia in Ethiopia . This chartered city is divided administratively into two woredas, the city proper and the non-urban woreda of Issa and Gurgura....
 (Diridhawa) to the west, Djibouti
Djibouti

Djibouti , officially the Republic of Djibouti, is a country in the Horn of Africa. It is bordered by Eritrea in the north, Ethiopia in the west and south, and Somalia in the southeast....
 to the north and Somalia
Somalia

Somalia , officially the Republic of Somalia and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic, is a country located in the Horn of Africa....
 to the north, east and south.

The region covers much of the traditional territory of Ogaden
Ogaden

Ogaden is the international name of the Somali Regional State in Ethiopia. The inhabitants are predominantly ethnic Somali people and Muslim. The title "Somali Galbeed", which means "Western Somalia," is often preferred by some clans....
 and it formed a large part of the pre-1995 province of Hararghe
Hararghe

Hararghe was a province in the eastern part of Ethiopia, with its capital in Harar. Hararghe included Ethiopia's part of the Ogaden.In 1960, the province south of the Shebelle River was made into its own province, Bale Province, Ethiopia....
. The region has a very high Somali population, and there is internal pressure to remove Ethiopian rule. There have been attempts to incorporate the area into a Greater Somalia
Greater Somalia

Greater Somalia refers to those regions in the Horn of Africa in which ethnic Somali people are and have historically represented the predominant population....
. In the 1970s, Somalia unsuccessfully invaded Ethiopia in support of local Somali rebels, particularly during the Ogaden War
Ogaden War

The Ogaden War was a conventional conflict between Somalia and Ethiopia in 1977 and 1978 over the Ogaden region of Ethiopia. In a notable illustration of the nature of Cold War alliances, the Soviet Union switched from supplying aid to Somalia to supporting Ethiopia, which had previously been backed by the United States, prompting the U.S....
.

In late April 2005, heavy rains generated widespread flooding throughout Somali Region as well as Somalia, and caused the Shebelle River
Shebelle River

The Shebelle River begins in the Ethiopian Highlands of Ethiopia, and then flows southeast into Somalia towards Mogadishu. Near Mogadishu it turns sharply southwest, where it follows the coast....
 to burst its banks. As of May 2005, the flood
Flood

A flood is an overflow of an expanse of water that submerges land, a deluge. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide....
ing in Somali Region alone had caused over 100 confirmed deaths and widespread property damage affecting over 100,000 persons. The floods also destroyed shelters housing 25,000 Somali refugees in Kenya
Kenya

The Republic of Kenya is a country in East Africa. It is bordered by Ethiopia to the north, Somalia to the northeast, Tanzania to the south, Uganda to the west, and Sudan to the northwest, with the Indian Ocean running along the southeast border....
.

Demographics

Based on the 2007 Census conducted by 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....
 of Ethiopia (CSA), the Somali Region has a total population of 4,439,147, consisting of 2,468,784 men and 1,970,363 women; urban inhabitants number 621,210 or 14% of the population. With an estimated area of 279,252 square kilometers, this region has an estimated density of 15.9 people per square kilometer. For the entire region 665,397 households were counted, which results in an average for the Region of 6.6 persons to a household, with urban households having on average 6.3 and rural households 6.7 people. Ethnic groups include Somalis
Somali people

Somalis are an ethnic group located in the Horn of Africa, also known as the Somali Peninsula. The overwhelming majority of Somalis speak the Somali language, which is part of the Cushitic languages subgroup of the Afro-Asiatic languages language family....
 (97.2%), Oromo (0.46%), Amhara
Amhara people

Amhara is an ethnic group in the central highlands of Ethiopia. Numbering about 19.8 million people, it comprises 26 percent of the country's population, according to the most recent census ....
 (0.66%), foreign-born Somalis (0.20%) and Gurages (0.12%). 98.4% of the population is Muslim
Islam in Ethiopia

According to the latest 1994 national census, Islam is the second most widely practiced religion in Ethiopia after Christianity, with over 25 million of Ethiopians adhering to Islam according to the 2007 national census, having arrived in Ethiopia in 615 ....
, 0.6% Orthodox Christian, and 1.0% are followers of all other religions.

In the previous census, conducted September 1997, the region's population was reported to be 3,439,860, of which 1,875,996 were males and 1,563,864 were females. The urban residents of the Somali Region numbered 492,710 households, with an average of 6.6 persons per household; a high sex ratio of 120 males to 100 females was reported.

The ethnic groups included Somalis (96.23%), Oromo (2.25%), Amhara (0.69%), and Gurages (0.14%). Somali was the working language and is predominantly spoken within the Region, spoken by 95.9% of the inhabitants. Other major languages included Oromifa
Oromo language

Oromo, also known as Afaan borana Oromoo, Oromiffa , and sometimes in other languages by variant spellings of these names , is an Afro-Asiatic languages language, and the most widely spoken of the Cushitic languages family....
 (2.24%), Amharic
Amharic language

Amharic is a Semitic languages spoken in North Central Ethiopia by the Amhara people. It is the second most spoken Semitic language in the world, after Arabic language, and the official working language of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia....
 (0.92%), and Gurage (0.033%). 98.7% of the population were Muslim, 0.9% Orthodox Christian, and 0.3% are followers of other religions.

According to the CSA, , 38.98% of the total population had access to safe drinking water
Water supply and sanitation in Ethiopia

}}||}}}}|-!align="center" bgcolor="lightblue" colspan="3"|Data|-!align="left" valign="top"|Water coverage ...
, of whom 21.32% were rural inhabitants and 77.21% were urban. Values for other reported common indicators of the standard of living
Standard of living

The standard of living refers to the quality and quantity of goods and services available to people, and the way these goods and services are distributed within a population....
 for Somali include the following: 71.8% of the inhabitants fall into the lowest wealth quintile; adult literacy for men is 22% and for women 9.8%; and the Regional infant mortality rate is 57 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, which is less than the nationwide average of 77; at least half of these deaths occurred in the infants’ first month of life.

Agriculture

The CSA of Ethiopia estimated in 2005 that farmers in Somalia had a total of 459,720 cattle (representing 1.19%% of Ethiopia's total cattle), 463,000 sheep (2.66%), 650,970 goats (5.02%), 91,550 asses (3.66%), 165,260 camels (36.2%), 154,670 poultry of all species (0.5%), and 5,330 beehives (0.12%). For nomadic inhabitants, the CSA provided two sets of estimates, one based on aerial surveys and the other on more conventional methodology:

Presidents of the Executive Committee

  • Abdulahi Muhammed Sa'adi (ONLF
    Ogaden National Liberation Front

    The Ogaden National Liberation Front , is a separatist rebel group fighting to make the region of Ogaden in eastern Ethiopia an independent state....
    ) (January 1993 - November 1993)
  • Hassan Jire Kalinle (ONLF) (1993 - April 1994)
  • Ugaz Abdulrahman Abd Ghani (April 1994 - 1995?)
  • Id Tahir Farah (ESDL) (1995 - October 1997)
  • Mohammed Ma'alin Ali (ONLF) (October 1997 - October 2000)
  • Abdul Reshid Dulane (SPDP
    Somali People's Democratic Party

    The Somali People's Democratic Party is a political party in Ethiopia. It was created from the merger of the Ethiopian Somali Democratic League and a splinter group of the Ogaden National Liberation Front in 1998....
    ) (October 2000 - 2003)
  • Abdul Jibril (acting) (SPDP) (2003 - October 2005)
  • Abdulahi Hassan Mohammed (SPDP) (October 2005 - present)


(This list is based on information from .)

Zones

  • Afder Zone
    Afder Zone

    Afder is one of the nine Zones of the Somali Region of Ethiopia. Afder is bordered on the southwest by the Ganale Dorya River which separates it from Liben Zone, on the west by the Oromia Region, on the north and northeast by the Shebelle River which separates it from Gode Zone, and on the east and southeast by Somalia....
  • Degehabur Zone
    Degehabur Zone

    Deghabur is one of the nine Zones in the Somali Region of Ethiopia. This zone is named after its largest city, Degehabur. Deghabur is bordered on the south by Korahe Zone and Gode Zone, on the west by Fiq Zone, on the northwest by the Oromia Region, on the north by Jijiga Zone and Somalia, and on the east by Werder Zone....
  • Fiq Zone
    Fiq Zone

    Fiq is one of the nine Zones of the Somali Region of Ethiopia. This zone is named after its largest city, Fiq, Ethiopia. Fiq Zone is bordered on the south by Gode Zone, on the west and north by the Oromia Region, and on the east by Degehabur Zone....
  • Gode Zone
    Gode Zone

    Gode is one of nine Zones of the Somali Region of Ethiopia. This zone is named for its largest city, Gode.Gode is bordered on the south by Afder Zone, on the west by the Oromia Region, on the north by Fiq Zone and Degehabur Zone, on the northeast by Korahe Zone and Werder Zone, and on the east by Somalia....
  • Jijiga Zone
    Jijiga Zone

    Jijiga is one of nine zones of the Ethiopian Somali Region. This zone is named after its largest city, Jijiga. Other towns and cities in this zone include Awbere, Derwonaji and Hart Sheik....
  • Korahe Zone
    Korahe Zone

    Korahe is one of nine Zones of the Somali Region of Ethiopia. Korahe is bordered on the south and west by Gode Zone, on the north by Degehabur Zone, and on the east by Werder Zone....
  • Liben Zone
    Liben Zone

    Liben is one of the nine Zones of the Somali Region of Ethiopia. Liben is bordered on the south by Kenya, on the west by the Oromia Region, on the northeast by Afder Zone, and on the southeast by Somalia....
  • Shinile Zone
    Shinile Zone

    Shinile is one of nine Zones of the Ethiopian Somali Region. Shinile is named for its largest town, Shinile.Located at the northwestern point of the Somali Region, and stretching across the savanna north of the Amhar mountains, Shinile is bordered on the south by the Oromia Region, on the west by the Afar Region, on the north by Djibouti, a...
  • Werder Zone
    Werder Zone

    Werder is one of nine Zones of the Somali Region in Ethiopia. This zone is named after its largest city, Werder, Ethiopia.Werder is bordered on the south by Gode Zone, on the west by Korahe Zone, on the northwest by Degehabur Zone, and on the northeast and southeast by Somalia....


See also

  • List of woredas in the Somali Region
    List of woredas in the Somali Region

    This is a list of the 47 woredas, or districts, in the Somali Region of Ethiopia, compiled from material on the Central Statistical Agency .*Afder ...


External links

  • (PDF
    Portable Document Format

    Portable Document Format is a file format created by Adobe Systems in 1993 for document exchange. PDF is used for representing two-dimensional documents in a manner independent of the application software, hardware, and operating system....
     file)
  • (PDF file)