Emdibir is a town 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 Gurage Zone

Gurage Zone

Gurage is a Zone in the Ethiopian Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region . This zone is named for the Gurage people, whose homeland lies in this zone. Gurage is bordered on the south by Hadiya on the west north and east by the Oromia Region, and on the southeast by Silte. Its highest...

 of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' Region, this town has a latitude and longitude of 8°7′N 37°56′E and an elevation between 2130 and 2164 meters above sea level. It is the administrative center of Cheha

Cheha

Cheha is one of the 77 woredas in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' Region of Ethiopia. This woreda is named after one of the sub-groups of the Sebat Bet Gurage, the Cheha...

 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...

.

According to the Gurage Zone government, Emdibir is one of 12 towns with electrical power, one of 11 with telephone service and one of nine that have postal service. An all-weather road was built in 1963 by the Gurage Road Association, which connected Emdibir to Addis Ababa

Addis Ababa

Addis Ababa is the capital city of Ethiopia...

 through Welkite

Welkite

Welkite is a town in southwestern Ethiopia. The administrative center of the Gurage Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' Region , this town has a latitude and longitude of and an elevation between 1910 and 1935 meters above sea level.According to the Gurage Zone government,...

 and Hosaena

Hosaena

Hosaena is a town in southern Ethiopia, and the administrative center of the Hadiya Zone...

.

The seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Emdeber is located in this town.

History

In the early 1930s there was a Catholic mission of the Capuchins

Order of Friars Minor Capuchin

The Order of Friars Minor Capuchin is an Order of friars in the Catholic Church, among the chief offshoots of the Franciscans. The worldwide head of the Order, called the Minister General, is currently Father Mauro Jöhri.-Origins :...

, usually with a Père and a Frère; they did some medical work and had a school. During the Italian occupation

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...

 the mission was renamed "Missione della Consolata". The Emdibir market was held every Friday.

In 1984 drought affected almost every household in Emdibir: there was no
rain, and the enset in many households was affected by a plant disease known as chire. Although it was insufficient, the community received aid in the form of clothes, maize, milk, butter and oil from the Catholic Relief Service, as well as some of the richer farmers in the area.

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, Emdibir has an estimated total population of 4,057 of whom 1,992 are men and 2,065 are women. The 1994 national census reported this town had a total population of 2,239 of whom 1,103 were men and 1,136 were women.