Tenta 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 Debub Wollo Zone

Debub Wollo Zone

Debub Wollo is one of 10 Zones in the Ethiopian Amhara Region. It acquired its name from the former province of Wollo.Debub Wollo is bordered on the south by Semien Shewa and the Oromia Region, on the west by Mirab Gojjam, on the northwest by Debub Gondar, on the north by Semien Wollo and on the...

 of the Amhara Region

Amhara Region

Amhara is one of the nine ethnic divisions of Ethiopia, containing the homeland of the Amhara people. Previously known as Region 3, its capital is Bahir Dar....

, Tenta has a latitude and longitude of 11°19′N 39°15′E with an elevation of 2972 meters above sea level. It is one of three towns in Tenta

Tenta (woreda)

Tenta is one of the 105 woredas in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia. Part of the Debub Wollo Zone, Tenta is bordered on the south by Legambo, on the southwest by Sayint, on the west by Magdala, on the north by the Bashilo River which separates it from Semien Wollo Zone, on the northeast by Amba Sel,...

 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...

.

A notable landmark in this town is the church dedicated to St. Michael, which was constructed at the patronage of Negus

Negus

Negus is a title in Ge'ez, Tigrinya, Tigre and Amharic, used for a king and at times also a vassal ruler in pre-1974 Ethiopia and pre-1890 Eritrea. It is subsequently used to translate the word "king" in Biblical and other literature...

 Mikael

Mikael of Wollo

Mikael of Wollo , born Mohammed Ali, was an army commander and a member of the nobility of the Ethiopian Empire. He was the father of the "uncrowned" Emperor Iyasu V. He changed his name to Mikael upon converting to Christianity.- Life :Mohammed Ali, an Oromo, was born in Wollo...

 around 1899, who made this town his headquarters. It is unusual for having three altars: one dedicated to St. Michael, another to St. Tekle Haymanot

Tekle Haymanot

Tekle Haymanot or Takla Haymanot was an Ethiopian monk who founded a major monastery in his native province of Shewa...

, and the third to the Holy Trinity. Three different masses are said to be celebrated simultaneously in this church. In a nearby mausoleum Negus Mikael is buried with his second wife Zennebech and two sons by his first wife, Ali and Desta.

History

The missionary Johann Ludwig Krapf

Johann Ludwig Krapf

Johann Ludwig Krapf was a German missionary in East Africa, as well as an explorer, linguist, and traveler. Krapf played an important role in exploring East Africa with Johannes Rebmann. They were the first Europeans to see Mount Kenya and Kilimanjaro...

 visited Tenta 22 March 1842, when it was the residence of Imam Liban of the Were Himano, a "House" or a sub-group of the Wollo Oromo. The settlement was surrounded by a ditch and wall, with a single entrance for security. As for the size of Tenta, Krapf states it was "a small village, containing about 600 inhabitants. A market is held here every week, and many articles are brought for sale."

Tenta is also the birthplace of the unlucky 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...

, the son of Negus Mikael, who was born there 4 February 1895 or 1896. A Swedish missionary who visited Tenta in the early 1930s found the settlement to be a strange little "king's town" surrounded by meter-high stone walls in three curves inside each other. On one side having a steep rock face, no wall was necessary.

The settlement had an Italian garrison until 19 May 1941 when it surrendered to Colonel Anderson, but in its final months it was under siege by arbegnoch fighters. It was subjected to an air attack 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...

 in November 1989 but escaped fatalities; however, in a second air attack on 4 January 1990 two were killed.

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, Tenta has an estimated total population of 4,022 of whom 1,996 are men and 2,206 are women. The 1994 census reported this town had a total population of 2,320 of whom 1,050 were men and 1,270 were women.