Samre is a town in northern 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 Debubawi (Southern) Zone

Debubawi Zone

Debubawi is one of five Zones in the Ethiopian Region of Tigray. Debubawi is bordered on the south and west by the Amhara Region, on the northwest by Mehakelegnaw , the north by Misraqawi and on the east by the Afar Region...

 of 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...

, this town has a latitude and longitude of 13°11′N 39°12′E with an elevation of 1855 meters above sea level. It is one of two towns in Samre

Samre (woreda)

Samre or Saharti Samre is one of the 36 woredas in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia. Part of the Debubawi Zone, Samre is bordered on the south by the Amhara Region, on the west and north by the Mehakelegnaw Zone, on the northeast by Enderta, on the east by Hintalo Wajirat, and on the southeast by...

 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...

.

History

The Royal Chronicle of Emperor Yohannes I

Yohannes I of Ethiopia

Yohannes I , throne name A'ilaf Sagad was of Ethiopia, and a member of the Solomonic dynasty...

 mentions Samre as one of the settlements involved in the 1677 revolt of Fares and Zamaryam. The town is mentioned again in an inquiry conducted by Emperor Iyasu I

Iyasu I of Ethiopia

Iyasu I , also known as Iyasu the Great, was of Ethiopia, and a member of the Solomonic dynasty...

 in 1698, in which he proclaimed that tolls should no longer be collected there.

When Charles Beke

Charles Tilstone Beke

Charles Tilstone Beke was an English traveller, geographer and Biblical critic. Born in Stepney, London, the son of a merchant in the City of London, for a few years Beke engaged in mercantile pursuits...

 left Ethiopia, his path took him through Samre (April 1843). He wrote that it was the residence of the governor of "Salowa", and the location of "the salt-market of Tigre, in direct correspondence with Sókota

Soqota

Soqota is a town in northern Ethiopia. The name is likely from the Agaw word sekut, "fortified village." Located the Wag Hemra Zone of the Amhara Region, Soqota has a latitude and longitude of and an elevation of 2266 meters above sea level...

 in Lasta

Lasta

Lasta is a historic district in north-central Ethiopia. It is the district in which Lalibela is situated, the former capital of Ethiopia during the Zagwe dynasty and home to 11 medieval rock-hewn churches....

". When Augustus B. Wylde passed through Samre in the late 1890s, the town had declined since the death of its resident lord, one Ras Hailu. The late Ras's palace, one of the largest structures Wylde had seen in Ethiopia, was reduced to ruins, and its market, which had been so busy to require daily sessions, now met once a week on Saturdays.

During the Ethiopian Civil War

Ethiopian Civil War

The Ethiopian Civil War began on September 12, 1974 when the Marxist Derg staged a coup d'état against Emperor Haile Selassie, and lasted until the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front , a coalition of rebel groups, overthrew the government in 1991. The war overlapped other Cold War...

, units of the Tigray People's Liberation Front held Samre from 20 June through 22 1988 against the Ethiopian 16th Division in a delaying action against the government's Operation Adwa.

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, Samre has an estimated total population of 3,712 of whom 1,748 are men and 1,964 are women. The 1994 census reported it had a total population of 2,138 of whom 931 were men and 1,207 were women.