Goba is a town in south-central 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 Bale Zone

Bale Zone

Bale is one of the 17 zones in the Oromia Region of Ethiopia. Bale is named for the former kingdom of Bale, which was in approximately the same area...

 of the Oromia Region approximately 446 km southeast of Addis Ababa

Addis Ababa

Addis Ababa is the capital city of Ethiopia...

, this city has a latitude and longitude of 7°0′N 39°59′E and an elevation of 2,743 meters above sea level. It is the administrative center of Goba

Goba (woreda)

Goba is one of the 180 woredas in the Oromia Region of Ethiopia. It is named after the administrative center of the woreda, Goba. Part of the Bale Zone, Goba is bordered on the south by Mennana Harena Buluk, on the west by Adaba, on the north by the Mena River which separates it from Sinanana...

 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...

.

The town is known for its Wednesday market

Market

A market is one of many varieties of systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby parties engage in exchange. While parties may exchange goods and services by barter, most markets rely on sellers offering their goods or services in exchange for money from buyers...

 and for 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...

, basketry and cotton

Cotton

Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....

 shawl

Shawl

A shawl is a simple item of clothing, loosely worn over the shoulders, upper body and arms, and sometimes also over the head. It is usually a rectangular or square piece of cloth, that is often folded to make a triangle but can also be triangular in shape...

 making; Bale National Park is 10 km to the southwest. A few kilometers outside of Goba are the remains of an old rock church. Goba shares Robe Airport

Robe Airport

Robe Airport is an airport in between Goba and Robe, Ethiopia . It has a single unpaved runway, 1970 meters long.-References:*...

 (ICAO code HAGB, IATA GOB) with neighbouring Robe

Robe, Bale (Ethiopia)

Robe is a town in south-central Ethiopia. Located in the Bale Zone of the Oromia Region, this town has a latitude and longitude of with an elevation of 2492 meters above sea level. It is the administrative center of Sinanana Dinsho woreda....

, from which Ethiopian Airlines

Ethiopian Airlines

Ethiopian Airlines , formerly Ethiopian Air Lines, often referred to as simply Ethiopian, is an airline headquartered on the grounds of Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It serves as the country's flag carrier, and is wholly owned by the Government of Ethiopia...

 operates flights to Addis Ababa.

History

Arnold Weinholt Hodson

Arnold Weinholt Hodson

Sir Arnold Wienholt Hodson , KCMG was a British colonial administrator who was Governor in turn of the Falkland Islands, Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast.-Background:Hodson was born in Bovey Tracey, Devonshire, in 1881...

 visited Goba while he was the British resident in southern Ethiopia (1914-1923), briefly describing it as a "large garrison town."

Goba was the capital of the former Bale Province, until the province was abolished with the adoption of the new constitution in 1995

1995 Constitution of Ethiopia

The current Constitution of Ethiopia, which is the supreme law of the Federal Republic of Ethiopia, was adopted by the Transitional Government of Ethiopia in December 1994 and came into force in August 1995. The constitution was drawn up by the Constituent Assembly elected in June of that year.The...

. A telephone line connected Goba to Addis Ababa

Addis Ababa

Addis Ababa is the capital city of Ethiopia...

 at least as early as 1936. During the Bale revolt, rebels attacked the capital twice between November 1965 and March 1966. In 1970 the town had the only high school in Bale Province; that year the school had 682 students, of whom 86 were Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

s in a province where Islam claimed over 90 per cent of the population. As Gebru Tareke grimly concludes, "Between February 1970, when the revolt ended, and February 1974, when the imperial regime collapsed, precious little had changed in Bale, as indeed in the rest of Ethiopia."

According to the third edition of the Lonely Planet

Lonely Planet

Lonely Planet is the largest travel guide book and digital media publisher in the world. The company is owned by BBC Worldwide, which bought a 75% share from the founders Maureen and Tony Wheeler in 2007 and the final 25% in February 2011...

 guide to Ethiopia, "Goba is in a state of decline and Ethiopian Airlines has even cancelled its flights here."

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 50,650 of whom 24,256 are men and 26,394 are women. The 1994 national census reported this town had a total population of 28,358 of whom 13,155 were men and 15,203 were women.