Adwa is one of the 36 woreda

Woreda

Woreda is an administrative division of Ethiopia , equivalent to a district . Woredas are composed of a number of Kebele, or neighborhood associations, which are the smallest unit of local government in Ethiopia...

s in the Tigray Region

Tigray Region

Tigray Region is the northernmost of the nine ethnic regions of Ethiopia containing the homeland of the Tigray people. It was formerly known as Region 1...

 of Ethiopia

Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

. Part of the Mehakelegnaw Zone

Mehakelegnaw Zone

Mehakelegnaw is a Zone in the Ethiopian Region of Tigray. Mehakelegnaw is bordered on the east by Misraqawi , on the south by Debubawi , on the west by Mirabawi and on the north by Eritrea...

, Adwa is bordered on the south by Werie Lehe

Werie Lehe

Werie Lehe is one of the 36 woredas in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia. Part of the Mehakelegnaw Zone, Werie Lehe is bordered on the south by the Wari River which separates it from Kola Tembien, on the southwest by Naeder Adet, on the west by La'ilay Maychew, on the north by Adwa, on the northeast by...

, on the west by La'ilay Maychew

La'ilay Maychew

La'ilay Maychew is one of the 36 woredas in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia. Part of the Mehakelegnaw Zone, La'ilay Maychew is bordered on the south by Naeder Adet, on the west by Tahtay Maychew, on the north by Mereb Lehe, and on the east by Adwa...

, on the north by Mereb Lehe

Mereb Lehe

Mereb Lehe is one of the 36 woredas in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia. Part of the Mehakelegnaw Zone, It is bordered on the south by La'ilay Maychew, on the southwest by Tahtay Maychew, on the west by the Mi'irabawi Zone, on the north by the Mareb River , on the east by Enticho, and on the...

, and on the east by Enticho

Enticho (woreda)

Enticho is one of the 36 woredas in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia. Part of the Mehakelegnaw Zone, Enticho is bordered on the south by Werie Lehe, on the southwest by Adwa, on the west by Mereb Lehe, on the north by Eritrea, and on the east by the Misraqawi Zone...

. The major town in this woreda is Adwa

Adwa

Adwa is a market town in northern Ethiopia, and best known as the community closest to the decisive Battle of Adowa fought in 1896 with Italian troops. Notably, Ethiopian soldiers won the battle, thus being the only African nation to thwart European colonialism...

, after which it is named.

Overview

High points in this woreda include Mount Soloda (2484 meters); rivers include the Assam. Notable landmarks include the village of Fremona

Fremona

Fremona was a town in northern Ethiopia, located in the modern Tigray Region. The town was about a mile in circumference and was flanked with towers. It served as the base of the Roman Catholic missionaries to Ethiopia during the 16th and 17th centuries...

, which was the base of the 16th century Jesuits sent to convert Ethiopia to Roman Catholicism

Roman Catholicism in Ethiopia

The Catholic Church in Ethiopia is part of the worldwide Roman Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope in Rome.The Ethiopian Catholic Church, the primary organization of Catholicism in the country, is especially close to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, whose doctrine and...

, and Abba Garima Monastery

Abba Garima Monastery

Abba Garima Monastery is an Ethiopian Orthodox monastery, located some 5 kilometres east of Adwa, in the Mehakelegnaw Zone of the Tigray Region of northern Ethiopia...

 which dates to the 6th century.

The Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation announced that it would provide 24-hour electrical service to five towns in Adwa, La'ilay Maychew and Naeder Adet

Naeder Adet

Naeder Adet is one of the 36 woredas in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia. Part of the Mehakelegnaw Zone, Naeder Adet is bordered on the south by the Wari River which separates it from Kola Tembien, on the west by Mi'irabawi Zone, on the northwest by Tahtay Maychew, on the northeast by La'ilay...

 woredas, reaching a total of 100,000 new clients in all of the woredas. This new service was planned to begin in June, 2007.

Demographics

Based on the 2007 national 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. It is part of the Ethiopian Ministry of Finance and...

 of Ethiopia (CSA), this woreda has a total population of 99,711, an increase of 17.74% over the 1994 census, of whom 49,546 are men and 50,165 women; no urban inhabitants were counted in this woreda. With an area of 1,888.60 square kilometers, Adwa has a population density of 52.80, which is less than the Zone average of 56.29 persons per square kilometer. A total of 20,141 households were counted in this woreda, resulting in an average of 4.95 persons to a household, and 19,525 housing units.

The 1994 national census reported a total population for this woreda of 109,203, of whom 53,324 were men and 55,879 were women; 24,519 or 22.45% of its population were urban dwellers. The largest ethnic group reported in Adwa was the Tigrayan

Tigray-Tigrinya people

Tigray-Tigrinya are an ethnic group who live in the southern, central and northern parts of Eritrea and the northern highlands of Ethiopia's Tigray province. They also live in Ethiopia's former provinces of Begemder and Wollo, which are today mostly part of Amhara Region, though a few regions...

 (99.53%). Tigrinya

Tigrinya language

Tigrinya , also spelled Tigrigna, Tigrnia, Tigrina, Tigriña, less commonly Tigrinian, Tigrinyan, is a Semitic language spoken by the Tigrinya people in central Eritrea , where it is one of the two main languages of Eritrea, and in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia , where it...

 was spoken as a first language by 99.56%. The majority of the population practiced Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, with 96.4% of the population reporting that belief, while 3.43% were Muslim

Islam in Ethiopia

According to the latest 2007 national census, Islam is the second most widely practised 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...

. Concerning education

Education in Ethiopia

Education in Ethiopia has been dominated by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church for many centuries until secular education was adopted in the early 1900s. Prior to 1974, Ethiopia had an estimated illiteracy rate well above 90% and compared poorly with the rest of Africa in the provision of schools and...

, 25.33% of the population were considered literate, which is more than the Zone average of 14.21%; 34.92% of children aged 7-12 were in primary school; 5.7% of the children aged 13-14 were in junior secondary school, and 8.99% of the inhabitants aged 15-18 were in senior secondary school. Concerning sanitary conditions

Water supply and sanitation in Ethiopia

Access to water supply and sanitation in Ethiopia is amongst the lowest in Sub-Saharan Africa and the entire world. While access has increased substantially with funding from external aid, much still remains to be done to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of halving the share of people...

, about 65% of the urban houses and 24% of all houses had access to safe drinking water at the time of the census; 31% of the urban and 10% of the total had toilet facilities.

Agriculture

A sample enumeration performed by the CSA in 2001 interviewed 23,613 farmers in this woreda, who held an average of 0.56 hectares of land. Of the 13,149 hectares of private land surveyed, 89.75% was in cultivation, 1.51% pasture, 3.22% fallow, 0.56% woodland, and 4.98% was devoted to other uses. For the land under cultivation in this woreda, 80.64% was planted in cereals, 7.48% in pulses, 0.61% in oilseeds, and 0.14% in vegetables. Fifteen hectares were planted in fruit trees and 47 in gesho. 78.71% of the farmers both raised crops and livestock, while 20.76% only grew crops and 0.54% only raised livestock. Land tenure in this woreda is distributed amongst 92.25% owning their land, and 6.97% renting; the percentage reported as holding their land under other forms of tenure is missing.