See also Bonga Field

Bonga Field

The Bonga Field is an oilfield in Nigeria. It was located in License block OPL 212 off the Nigerian coast, which was renamed OML 118 in February 2000. The field covers approximately 60 km2 in an average water depth of . The field was discovered in 1996, with government approval for its...

 for the oil field

Bonga is a town in southwestern 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...

. Located southwest of Jimma

Jimma

Jimma, also Jima, is the largest city in southwestern Ethiopia. Located in the Jimma Zone of the Oromia Region, it has a latitude and longitude of . The town was the capital of Kaffa Province until the province was dissolved. Prior to the 2007 census, Jimma was reorganized administratively as a...

 in the Keficho Shekicho Zone

Keficho Shekicho Zone

Keficho Shekicho is a Zone in the Ethiopian Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region . While in their latest population estimates the Central Statistical Agency includes it as a single Zone, the list of second administrative level bodies maintained by the United Nations Geographic...

 of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region upon a hill in the upper Barta valley, it has a latitude and longitude of 7°16′N 36°14′E with an elevation of 1,714 meters above sea level. Bonga is the administrative center of the Keficho Shekicho Zone, with a major market on Saturday and lesser ones on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Overview

The neighboring area is known for hot springs, caves and waterfalls. There are fourteenth century ruins associated with the former Kingdom of Kaffa

Kingdom of Kaffa

The Kingdom of Kaffa was an early modern state located in what is now Ethiopia, with its capital at Bonga. The Gojeb River formed its northern border, beyond which lay the Gibe kingdoms; to the east the territory of the Konta and Kullo peoples lay between Kaffa and the Omo River; to the south...

. As part of the extensive road-building program started before the Italian invasion

Second Italo-Abyssinian War

The Second Italo–Abyssinian War was a colonial war that started in October 1935 and ended in May 1936. The war was fought between the armed forces of the Kingdom of Italy and the armed forces of the Ethiopian Empire...

, the Ethiopian Transport Company built a large steel bridge at Bonga. The all weather road from Jimma

Jimma

Jimma, also Jima, is the largest city in southwestern Ethiopia. Located in the Jimma Zone of the Oromia Region, it has a latitude and longitude of . The town was the capital of Kaffa Province until the province was dissolved. Prior to the 2007 census, Jimma was reorganized administratively as a...

 south to Bonga was completed around 1962. The road to Mizan Teferi

Mizan Teferi

Mizan Tefere is a town in southern Ethiopia. The largest town, and the administrative center, of the Bench Maji Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Region , and located about 160 kilometers southwest of Jimma, Mizan Tefere has a latitude and longitude of and an elevation of...

 and Tepi was improved in 1966 by the Highway Authority. The Apostolic Prefecture of Jimma–Bonga is based in this town.

According to the SNNPR's Bureau of Finance and Economic Development, Bonga's amenities include digital telephone access, postal service, 24-hour electrical service, a bank and a hospital. The high school draws students from a broad area. The city is a center for the buying of honey

Honey

Honey is a sweet food made by bees using nectar from flowers. The variety produced by honey bees is the one most commonly referred to and is the type of honey collected by beekeepers and consumed by humans...

 and cardamom

Cardamom

Cardamom refers to several plants of the genera Elettaria and Amomum in the ginger family Zingiberaceae. Both genera are native to India and Bhutan; they are recognised by their small seed pod, triangular in cross-section and spindle-shaped, with a thin papery outer shell and small black seeds...

.

History

The first European recorded to have visited the capital of the former Kingdom of Kaffa was Antoine Thomson d'Abbadie

Antoine Thomson d'Abbadie

Antoine Thomson d'Abbadie d'Arrast was a French and Basque explorer, geographer, ethnologue, linguist and astronomer notable for his travels in Ethiopia during the first half of the 19th century...

, who resided for 11 days in the marketplace reserved for Christian traders in 1843. The royal residence at Bonga was not as elegant as those in Gomma

Kingdom of Gomma

The Kingdom of Gomma was one of the kingdoms in the Gibe region of Ethiopia that emerged in the 18th century. It shared its northern border with Limmu-Ennarea, its western border with Gumma, its southern border with Gera, and its eastern border with Jimma...

, Gera

Kingdom of Gera

The Kingdom of Gera was one of the kingdoms in the Gibe region of Ethiopia that emerged in the late 19th century. It shared its northern border with the Kingdom of Gumma, its eastern border with the Kingdom of Gomma, and was separated from the Kingdom of Kaffa to the south by the Gojeb River...

, and Limmu-Ennarea

Limmu-Ennarea

The Kingdom of Limmu-Ennarea was one of the kingdoms in the Gibe region of Ethiopia that emerged in the 19th century. It shared its eastern border with Jimma, its southern border with Gomma, and its western border with Gumma. Beyond its northern border lay tribes of the Macha Oromo...

. Capuchin

Order of Friars Minor Capuchin

The Order of Friars Minor Capuchin is an Order of friars in the Catholic Church, among the chief offshoots of the Franciscans. The worldwide head of the Order, called the Minister General, is currently Father Mauro Jöhri.-Origins :...

 monks founded a mission there in 1845 and discovered some medieval churches which remained as evidence of the early infiltration of Christian influence before the invasion of the Oromo

Oromo people

The Oromo are an ethnic group found in Ethiopia, northern Kenya, .and parts of Somalia. With 30 million members, they constitute the single largest ethnic group in Ethiopia and approximately 34.49% of the population according to the 2007 census...

.

When Paul Soleillet visited Bonga in the 1880s, he described its trade as primarily slaves, coffee

Coffee production in Ethiopia

The coffee production in Ethiopia is critical to the Ethiopian economy with about 25% of the population depending directly or indirectly on coffee for its livelihood...

, civet cat

Civet cat

Civet cat is an imprecise term that is used for a variety of cat-like creatures including:*Civets, of the families Viverridae and Nandiniidae*Ring-tailed Cat or North American Civet Cat , related to the raccoons...

 oil, coriander

Coriander

Coriander is an annual herb in the family Apiaceae. Coriander is native to southern Europe and North Africa to southwestern Asia. It is a soft, hairless plant growing to tall. The leaves are variable in shape, broadly lobed at the base of the plant, and slender and feathery higher on the...

 and ivory

Ivory

Ivory is a term for dentine, which constitutes the bulk of the teeth and tusks of animals, when used as a material for art or manufacturing. Ivory has been important since ancient times for making a range of items, from ivory carvings to false teeth, fans, dominoes, joint tubes, piano keys and...

, the turnover amounting between 200,000 and 300,000 dollars a year. Following the conquest of Kaffa by the generals of Menelik II in 1897, Bonga was deserted; governor Ras Wolde Giyorgis made neighboring Anderaccha

Anderaccha

Anderaccha is a town in southwestern Ethiopia. Located in the Keficho Shekicho Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region, at the confluence of the Guma River with the Gichey, this town has a latitude and longitude of with an elevation of 1629 meters above sea level...

 his capital.

Bonga was occupied 13 December 1936 by the Italians

Italian East Africa

Italian East Africa was an Italian colonial administrative subdivision established in 1936, resulting from the merger of the Ethiopian Empire with the old colonies of Italian Somaliland and Italian Eritrea. In August 1940, British Somaliland was conquered and annexed to Italian East Africa...

 under General Malta, who died there the next year on 30 May. He and his successor Colonel Corrado refounded Bonga as a local administrative and commercial center for the production of coffee, hides, wax, maize, tea, etc. By 1938, there were about 3,000 inhabitants in the town, of whom about 200 were Italians, and it was equipped with a post office, telegraph, hospital, pharmacy, and spacci. There were few remains of early constructions, but the new settlement was well built from brick and tufa

Tufa

Tufa is a variety of limestone, formed by the precipitation of carbonate minerals from ambient temperature water bodies. Geothermally heated hot-springs sometimes produce similar carbonate deposits known as travertine...

, covered by clay tiles or corrugated iron. Generals Bortello and Tosti, commanders of the Italian forces south of the Didessa River

Didessa River

The Didessa River is a river in western Ethiopia. A tributary of the Abay River, it rises in the mountains of Gomma, flowing in a northwestern direction to its confluence where the course of the Abay has curved to its southernmost point before turning northwards at about...

 acknowledged their weak position and along with 2,850 troops on 28 June 1941 surrendered to Lt. Col. McNab of the King's African Rifles

King's African Rifles

The King's African Rifles was a multi-battalion British colonial regiment raised from the various British possessions in East Africa from 1902 until independence in the 1960s. It performed both military and internal security functions within the East African colonies as well as external service as...

.

Telephone service reached Bonga between 1954 and 1967. Around 1970, there lived in Bonga one Idebe Godo who was the chief priest of a spirit possession cult. The high priesthood was hereditary to the family of the former high priests to the King of Kaffa.

Demographics

Based on figures from 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...

in 2005, Bonga has an estimated total population of 19,664 of whom 9088 are men and 10,576 are women. The 1994 census reported it had a total population of 10,851 of whom 5,032 were men and 5,819 women.