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About
Gurage Zone
The Gurage people occupy the southern most areas of the central plateau, mainly the beautiful semi- mountainous part of the country (i.e. Today’s Gurage Zone). The Gurage houses are circular, with beautiful thatched steep roofs generally with a pot at the apex. Each stands in its own immaculately clean compound; a dirty one is described as being like that of a dead man because the people believe that idleness is a sin and work is the key to success. The Gurages live in small densely settled villages, and like many other peoples of the southern Region they, take enset as their main cultural subsistence crop. Nowadays, the neighboring peoples like Kambata, Alaba, and Hadiya adopted the same style of house building as the Gurages. Gurage zone has a total area of 8002 km2 and a projected population of 1,577,077 in the year 2005. Wolkite, which is 158 kms from Addis Ababa on Addis Ababa–Jima road, is the capital of the zone. The major ethnic groups of the zone are Gurage, Kebena and Mareko. About 94% of the population lives in rural areas. The people are mostly engaged in mixed farming. They mostly grow enset, wheat, barley, maize, sorghum and teff as food crops. Coffee and chat are grown as cash crops. Gurage zone has natural as well as historical tourist attraction areas.Socio-economic... |
