Dizi is the name of an ethnic group living in southern 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...

. They share a number of somatic similarities with certain culturally (but not always linguistically) related peoples of south-western Ethiopia, which include the Sheko and Nao, the Gimira (She, Bench, Mer), the Tsara, the Dime, the Aari and certain sub-groups of the Basketo people

Basketo people

The Basketo people are an Omotic-speaking ethnic group whose homeland lies in the southern part of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Region . The Basketo special woreda is named after this ethnic group...

. A. E. Jensen has gathered these groups under the label of the "ancient peoples of southern Ethiopia".

Before their forced incorporation into the Ethiopian Empire in the 1890s, based on their own statements and the evidence of numerous abandoned terraced hillsides, the Dizi are estimated to have numbered between 50,000 and 100,000. However, as Haberland observes, the imposition of an outside authority and its misrule led to a massive depopulation due to the abuses of the gebbar system, slave-raiding, "famine, disease and a growing sense of hopelessness and resignation, engendered by a total absence of justice. These things not only caused the number of Dizi to shrink (in 1974 there were probably scarcely more than 20,000) but shook their whole culture to its roots."

Demographics

The 2007 Ethiopian national census reported that 36,380 people (or 0.05% of the population) identified themselves as Dizi, of whom 4,968 were urban inhabitants. The Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region

Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region

Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region is one of the nine ethnic divisions of Ethiopia. It was formed from the merger of the former Regions 7-11 following the 1994 elections...

 is home to 98.9% of this people. They are the majority of the inhabitants of the Dizi

Dizi (woreda)

Dizi is one of the 77 woredas in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' Region of Ethiopia. It is named after the Dizi people, whose homeland lies in the northern part of this district; a different ethnic group, the Surma, inhabit the southern part...

 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...

, and have notable minorities in the neighboring Meinit

Meinit

Meinit is one of the 77 woredas in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' Region of Ethiopia. Part of the Bench Maji Zone, Meinit is bordered on the south by Dizi, on the west by Sheko, on the north by Bench, on the east by the Keficho Shekicho Zone, and on the southeast by the Omo River...

 and Surma

Surma (woreda)

Surma is one of the 77 woredas in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' Region of Ethiopia. It is named for the Surma people, whose homeland lies in the southern part of the woreda. Part of the Bench Maji Zone, Surma is bordered on the south and west by Sudan, on the north by the Akobo...

woredas.