Awasa is a city in 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...

, on the shores of Lake Awasa

Lake Awasa

Lake Awasa is an endorheic basin in Ethiopia, located in the Rift Valley south of Addis Ababa. According to the Statistical Abstract of Ethiopia for 1967/68, the lake is 16 km long and 9 km wide, with a surface area of 129 square kilometers...

 in the Great Rift Valley

Great Rift Valley

The Great Rift Valley is a name given in the late 19th century by British explorer John Walter Gregory to the continuous geographic trench, approximately in length, that runs from northern Syria in Southwest Asia to central Mozambique in South East Africa...

. Located in the Sidama Zone

Sidama Zone

Sidama is a Zone in the Ethiopian Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region . It is named for the Sidama people, whose homeland is located in this zone...

 270 km south of Addis Ababa

Addis Ababa

Addis Ababa is the capital city of Ethiopia...

 via Debre Zeit, 130 km east of Sodo

Sodo

Sodo or Wolaita Sodo is a town in south-central Ethiopia. The administrative center of the Wolaita Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Region, Sodo has a latitude and longitude of with an elevation between 1600 and 2100 meters above sea level...

, 75 km north of Dilla

Dilla

Dilla is a city located in the northwestern Awdal region of Somalia.-History:Local control of the city is disputed between Awdalland, a proposed autonomous state, and Somaliland, a self-declared independent republic that is internationally recognized as an autonomous region of...

 and 1125 km north of Nairobi

Nairobi

Nairobi is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The city and its surrounding area also forms the Nairobi County. The name "Nairobi" comes from the Maasai phrase Enkare Nyirobi, which translates to "the place of cool waters". However, it is popularly known as the "Green City in the Sun" and is...

, Awasa is the capital of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Region. The city lies on the Trans-African Highway 4

Cairo-Cape Town Highway

The Cairo-Cape Town Highway is Trans-African Highway 4 in the transcontinental road network being developed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa , the African Development Bank , and the African Union...

 Cairo

Cairo

Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

-Cape Town

Cape Town

Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...

, with a latitude and longitude of 7°3′N 38°28′E and an elevation of 1708 meters. It is the largest settlement in Awasa

Awasa (woreda)

Awasa is one of the 77 woredas in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' Region of Ethiopia. Part of the Sidama Zone located in the Great Rift Valley, Awasa is bordered on the south by Shebedino, and on the west, north and east by the Oromia Region...

 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...

.

Awassa was capital of the former Sidamo Province

Sidamo Province

Sidamo was a province in the southern part of Ethiopia, with its capital city at Irgalem, and after 1978 at Awasa. It was named after an ethnic group native to Ethiopia, called the Sidamo, or more particularly, Sidama, who are located in the south-central part of that country...

 from about 1978 until the province was abolished with the adoption of the 1995 Constitution.