Dembidolo is a market town

Market town

Market town or market right is a legal term, originating in the medieval period, for a European settlement that has the right to host markets, distinguishing it from a village and city...

 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 in the Mirab Welega Zone

Mirab Welega Zone

Mirab Welega is one of the 12 Zones in the Ethiopian Region of Oromia. This zone is named after the former province of Welega, whose western part lay in the area Mirab Misraq now occupies....

 of the Oromia Region

Oromia Region

Oromia is one of the nine ethnic divisions of Ethiopia...

, this town has a latitude and longitude of 8°32′N 34°48′E with an elevation between 1701 and 1827 meters above sea level.

Dembidolo is known for goldsmith

Goldsmith

A goldsmith is a metalworker who specializes in working with gold and other precious metals. Since ancient times the techniques of a goldsmith have evolved very little in order to produce items of jewelry of quality standards. In modern times actual goldsmiths are rare...

 work and for tej

Tej

Tej is a mead or honey wine that is brewed and consumed in Ethiopia. It is flavored with the powdered leaves and twigs of gesho , a hops-like bittering agent that is a species of buckthorn...

production. The town also possesses an airport

Dembidolo Airport

Dembidolo Airport is an airport in Dembidolo, Ethiopia . Located at an elevation of 1585 meters above sea level, this airport has one unpaved runway 1585 meters long.-External links:*...

 (ICAO code HADD, IATA DEM).

History

Originally known as Sayo, after the semi-autonomous kingdom that had ruled in this area in the years after 1900, by 1920 this town served as the seat of the governors of this part of southwestern Ethiopia until the Italian conquest

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...

. Richard Pankhurst

Richard Pankhurst (academic)

Richard Keir Pethick Pankhurst OBE is a British academic with expertise in the study of Ethiopia.-Early life and education:...

 notes that during this period Dembidolo was "a great commercial centre for coffee

Coffee

Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...

, where by the 1930's perhaps 500,000 kilos of beans, besides large quantities of wax and skins, were exported every year to the Sudan

Sudan

Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...

." Emperor Iyasu V

Iyasu V of Ethiopia

Iyasu V , also known as Lij Iyasu was the designated but uncrowned Emperor of Ethiopia . His baptismal name was Kifle Yaqob...

 visited Dembidolo around 1912, and was welcomed by Dejazmach Jote.

By 1958 Dembidolo became one of 27 places in Ethiopia ranked as First Class Township. That same year, the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia

Commercial Bank of Ethiopia

The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia is the largest commercial bank in Ethiopia and had about Birr 73.7 billion , in assets at the end of June 2010. At the time, the bank held approximately 63.5% of deposits and about 38% of all bank loans in the country...

 opened a branch in the town.

The last military action of the Oromo Liberation Front

Oromo Liberation Front

The Oromo Liberation Front , or OLF, is an organization established in 1973 by Oromo nationalists to promote self-determination for the Oromo people against what they call "Abyssinian colonial rule". It has been outlawed and labeled as a terrorist organization by the Ethiopian government...

 (OLF) before the demise of the Derg

Derg

The Derg or Dergue was a Communist military junta that came to power in Ethiopia following the ousting of Haile Selassie I. Derg, which means "committee" or "council" in Ge'ez, is the short name of the Coordinating Committee of the Armed Forces, Police, and Territorial Army, a committee of...

 1991 occurred at Dembidolo, when some of its units reportedly killed more than 700 government soldiers. Afterwards, the OLF assumed civilian control of Dembidolo and its surrounding territory. However, when the OLF found that their efforts to field candidates in the rest of the Oromia region were frustrated by the Oromo Peoples' Democratic Organization

Oromo Peoples' Democratic Organization

The Oromo Peoples' Democratic Organization is an ethnic-based political party in Ethiopia, and part of the alliance with the Amhara National Democratic Movement, the South Ethiopian Peoples' Democratic Front and the Tigrayan Peoples' Liberation Front that forms the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary...

, which also had the support of the ruling Tigrayan People's Liberation Front

Tigrayan People's Liberation Front

The Tigrayan People's Liberation Front , known more commonly and sometimes pejoratively in Ethiopia as Woyane or Weyane is a political party in Ethiopia...

, the OLF withdrew from the government in 1992. This proved to be a disaster for the OLF, as EPRDF forces captured Dembidolo and forcibly drove the OLF membership into exile.

In February 2008, police in Dembidolo arrested 16 people belonging to the opposition Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement

Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement

The Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement is a political party in Ethiopia, created to further the interests of the Oromo people.At the last legislative elections, on 15 May 2005, the party won 11 seats, all from the Oromia Region. The party Whip is Mesfin Nemera Deriesa from the Mirab Welega Zone...

, accusing them of being members of the banned OLF. Although two weeks later a court ordered them all released when police failed to provide evidence to support their accusations, they were subsequently threatened with physical harm by local officials.

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, this town has an estimated total population of 35,065 of whom 18,129 are men and 16,936 are women. The 1994 census reported this town had a total population of 19,587 of whom 9,832 were males and 9,755 were females. It is the largest settlement in Sayo

Sayo

Sayo is one of the 180 woredas in the Oromia Region of Ethiopia. This woreda received its name from the old name of its administrative center, Dembidolo...

 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...

.