Metemma
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Metemma (also known as Metemma Yohannes) is a village in northeastern Ethiopia, on the border with Sudan. Located in the Semien Gondar Zone of the Amhara Region, Metemma has a longitude and latitude of . Across the border is the corresponding Sudanese village of Gallabat.
Based on figures from the Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia published in 2005, Metemma has an estimated population of 2992 males and 2340 females for a total population of 5,332.[1]
Metemma hosts an airport, (ICAO code HAMM, IATA ETE).
[edit] History
Metemma lay on the important trade route between the capital Gondar and Sudan, which made it not only a major marketplace, but also a major slave market in the 19th century. Richard Pankhurst has published estimates of the number of people sold in this market during the 19th century that range between 10,000 and 20,000.[2] By 1881, European visitors reported that the Emperor Yohannes IV had ordered the slave market closed.[3]
[edit] Notes
- ^ CSA 2005 National Statistics, Table B.4.
- ^ Richard R.K. Pankhurst, An Economic History of Ethiopia (Addis Ababa: Haile Selassie University Press, 1968), p. 84.
- ^ Pankhurst, p. 98
