Kebri Mangest

Kebri Mangest
Adola, Angedi
Kebri Mangest

Location within Ethiopia

Coordinates: 5°53′N 38°59′E / 5.883°N 38.983°ECoordinates: 5°53′N 38°59′E / 5.883°N 38.983°E
Country Ethiopia
Region Oromia
Zone Guji
Elevation 1,758 m (5,768 ft)
Population (2007)
  Total 22,938
Time zone EAT (UTC+3)

Kebri Mangest (Amharic "Glory of the State"; also known as Adola or Angedi) is a town and separate woreda in southeastern Ethiopia. It is located in the Guji Zone of the Oromia Region, at an altitude of 1,758 metres (5,768 ft) above sea level.

Overview

Kebri Mangest is served by a network of roads. A new road to Shakiso was built around 1960. Two years later an all weather road reached the town from the north and a dry weather road south to Negele Boran.[1] This town has both telephone and postal service, and is supplied with electricity by the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation from the national grid.[2]

The gold mine near Kebre Mangest has been the most historically important gold mine in Ethiopia since its opening in 1941; in 1944, for example, its revenue came to nearly a fifth of the total government budget. However in the public vocabulary, according to the Ethiopian historian Bahru Zewde, the name of the town signified "terror both in the forcible recruitment of labour and in the conditions of penal servitude that prevailed in the labour camp."[3]

Kebri Mangest was founded during the Italian occupation; a British soldier who travelled through the area wrote in his memoirs that he remembered a "long, wooded valley with a few recently-built villas, the beginning of a new Italian settlement named Adola", as well as rumors that the Italians had found gold in the area.[1]

Demographics

The 2007 national census reported a total population for this town of 22,938, of whom 11,706 were men and 11,232 were women. The majority of the inhabitants said they practiced Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, with 69.35% of the population reporting they observed this belief, while 17.5% of the population were Protestant, 11.05% were Muslim.[4] The 1994 national census reported this town had a total population of 20,136 of whom 10,159 were males and 9,977 were females. It is the larger of two towns in Adolana Wadera woreda.

Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 "Local History in Ethiopia" The Nordic Africa Institute website (accessed 29 November 2007)
  2. Woreda administration sources, as quoted in Final Report for Aposto-Wendo-Negele (World Bank Report E1546, vol. 1), pp. 71f
  3. Bahru Zewde (2001). A History of Modern Ethiopia (second ed.). Oxford: James Currey. p. 200. ISBN 0-85255-786-8.
  4. 2007 Population and Housing Census of Ethiopia: Results for Oromia Region, Vol. 1, Tables 2.1, 2.5, 3.4 (accessed 13 January 2012)