Dessie

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Dessie (also spelled Dese or Dessye) is a city and a woreda in north-central Ethiopia. Located on the paved Addis Ababa - Asmara highway in the Debub Wollo Zone of the Amhara Region, this city has a latitude and longitude of 11°8′N 39°38′E.

One of the largest cities in Ethiopia, based on figures from the Central Statistical Agency in 2005, this city has an estimated total population of 169,104 of whom 86,167 were males and 82,937 were females. The woreda has an estimated area of 15.08 square kilometers, which gives Dessie a density of 11,213.79 people per square kilometer.^[1] According to the 1994 national census 97,314 people lived here.

Dessie is home to a museum, in the former home of Dejazmach Yoseph Biru. Dessie shares Combolcha Airport (ICAO code HADC, IATA DSE) with neighbouring Kombolcha.

[edit] History

While camping here in 1882, Emperor Yohannes IV was so impressed by his sight of a comet, which he interpreted as a wondrous event, he decided to found a city here, and named it Dessie (Amharic "My Joy"). Prior to Dessie's foundation, the major settlement in this area was Wasal, first mentioned in an early 16th century Italian itinerary,^[2]

Dessie increased in importance when Ras Mikael Ali, son-in-law to Emperor Menelik II, made it his base. It was in Dessie where his son, the Emperor Iyasus V, crowned him negus around 1915. During the Italian occupation, Dessie became an important administrative center, and after the Second World War, the town continued in importance as the capital of the province of Wollo until the province's abolition in 1995.