Jimma, also Jima, is the largest city 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 Jimma Zone

Jimma Zone

Jimma is one of the 17 Zones of the Ethiopian Region of Oromia. Jimma is named for the former Kingdom of Jimma, which was absorbed into the former province of Kaffa in 1932...

 of the Oromia Region

Oromia Region

Oromia is one of the nine ethnic divisions of Ethiopia...

, it has a latitude and longitude of 7°40′N 36°50′E. The town was the capital of Kaffa Province

Kaffa Province, Ethiopia

Kaffa was a province on the southwestern side of Ethiopia; its capital city was Jimma. It was named after the former Kingdom of Kaffa.Kaffa was bordered on the west by Sudan, on the northwest by Illubabor, on the north by Walega, on the northeast by Shewa, on the east by Sidamo, and on the...

 until the province was dissolved. Prior to the 2007 census, Jimma was reorganized administratively as a special Zone

Zones of Ethiopia

||The regions of Ethiopia are divided into 68 or more zones . The exact number of zones is unclear, as the names and number of zones given in documents by Ethiopia's Central Statistical Agency differ between 2005...

.

Herbert S. Lewis states that in the early 1960s it was "the greatest market in all of southwestern Ethiopia. On a good day in the dry season it attracts up to thirty thousand people."

History

Its northern suburb of Jiren

Jiren

Jiren was the capital of a large Oromo kingdom of Ethiopia until the late 19th century. It lies today in the northern suburbs of the city of Jimma in the Oromia Region.-History:...

 was the capital of a large Oromo

Oromo people

The Oromo are an ethnic group found in Ethiopia, northern Kenya, .and parts of Somalia. With 30 million members, they constitute the single largest ethnic group in Ethiopia and approximately 34.49% of the population according to the 2007 census...

 kingdom until the late 19th century. Originally named Hirmata, the city owed its importance in the 19th century to being located on the caravan route between Shewa

Shewa

Shewa is a historical region of Ethiopia, formerly an autonomous kingdom within the Ethiopian Empire...

 and the Kingdom of Kaffa

Kingdom of Kaffa

The Kingdom of Kaffa was an early modern state located in what is now Ethiopia, with its capital at Bonga. The Gojeb River formed its northern border, beyond which lay the Gibe kingdoms; to the east the territory of the Konta and Kullo peoples lay between Kaffa and the Omo River; to the south...

, as well as being only six miles from the palace of the king of Jimma

Kingdom of Jimma

The Kingdom of Jimma was one of the kingdoms in the Gibe region of Ethiopia that emerged in the 19th century. It shared its western border with Limmu-Ennarea, its eastern border with the Sidamo kingdom of Janjero, and was separated from the Kingdom of Kaffa to the south by the Gojeb River. Jimma...

. According to Donald Levine, in the early 19th century the market attracted thousands of people from neighboring regions: "Amhara from Gojjam and Shoa, Oromo from all the Gibe Kingdoms and numerous representatives of the Lacustrine and Omotic groups, including Timbaro, Qabena, Kefa, Janjero, Welamo, Konta and several others".

The present town was developed on the Awetu River

Awetu River

The Awetu is a river of southwestern Ethiopia,it is particularly found near jimma town at 7 degree north and 37 degree east with some approximaton.the river touchs the center of the town to make it's outlet southward,by Sewale Lewoyehu from Jimma university,Department of Geography and Environmental...

 by Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 colonial

Colonialism

Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...

ists in the 1930s. At that time, with the goal of weakening the native Ethiopian Church, the Italians intended to make Jimma an important center of Islam

Islam

Islam . The most common are and .   : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

ic learning, and founded an academy to teach fiqh

Fiqh

Fiqh is Islamic jurisprudence. Fiqh is an expansion of the code of conduct expounded in the Quran, often supplemented by tradition and implemented by the rulings and interpretations of Islamic jurists....

.

Jimma was the scene of a violent encounter which started in April 1975 between radical college students (known as zemacha) sent to organize local peasants, who had benefited from land reform

Land reform in Ethiopia

The problem of Land reform in Ethiopia has hampered that country's economic development throughout the late 19th and 20th centuries. Attempts to modernize land ownership by giving title either to the peasants who till the soil, or to large-scale farming programs, have been tried under imperial...

, and local police, who had sided with local landowners. Students and peasant followers had imprisoned local small landowners, rich peasants and members of the local police force; this action led to further unrest, causing the Derg

Derg

The Derg or Dergue was a Communist military junta that came to power in Ethiopia following the ousting of Haile Selassie I. Derg, which means "committee" or "council" in Ge'ez, is the short name of the Coordinating Committee of the Armed Forces, Police, and Territorial Army, a committee of...

 (the ruling junta

Military dictatorship

A military dictatorship is a form of government where in the political power resides with the military. It is similar but not identical to a stratocracy, a state ruled directly by the military....

) to send a special delegation to Jimma, which sided with the local police. In the end, 24 students were killed, more arrested, and the local zemacha camps closed. Days before the end of 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 May 1991, the city was captured by the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front

Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front

The Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front is the ruling political coalition in Ethiopia. It is an alliance of four other groups: the Oromo Peoples' Democratic Organization , the Amhara National Democratic Movement , the South Ethiopian Peoples' Democratic Front The Ethiopian People's...

.

On 13 December 2006, the Ethiopian government announced that it had secured a loan of US$ 98 million from the African Development Bank

African Development Bank

The African Development Bank Group is a development bank established in 1964 with the intention of promoting economic and social development in Africa...

 to pave the 227 kilometers of highway between Jimma and Mizan Teferi

Mizan Teferi

Mizan Tefere is a town in southern Ethiopia. The largest town, and the administrative center, of the Bench Maji Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Region , and located about 160 kilometers southwest of Jimma, Mizan Tefere has a latitude and longitude of and an elevation of...

 to the southwest. The loan would cover 64% of the 1270.97 million Birr

Ethiopian birr

The birr is the unit of currency in Ethiopia. Before 1976, dollar was the official English translation of birr. Today, it is officially birr in English as well....

 budgeted for this project.

Demographics

Based on the 2007 Census conducted by 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...

 of Ethiopia (CSA), this Zone has a total population of 120,960, of whom 60,824 are men and 60,136 women. With an area of 50.52 square kilometers, Jimma has a population density of 2,394.30 all are urban inhabitants. A total of 32,191 households were counted in this Zone, which results in an average of 3.76 persons to a household, and 30,016 housing units. The national 1994 census reported this town had a total population of 88,867, of whom 43,874 were men and 44,993 were women.

Points of interest

Some buildings survive from the time of the Jimma Kingdom, including the Palace of Abba Jifar. The city is home to a museum

Museum

A museum is an institution that cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities...

, Jimma University

Jimma University

Jimma University is one of the top teaching universities in Ethiopia, and is located in Oromia Region, Jimma Zone. It offers programs and researches which lead toward degrees in different fields of studies. It was established in December 1999 with the amalgamation of the Jimma College of...

, several 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...

s, and an airport

Aba Segud Airport

-External links:*...

 (ICAO code HAJM, IATA JIM). Also of note is the Jimma Research Center, founded in 1968, which is run by the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research

Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research

The Ethiopian Agricultural Research Institute has evolved through several stages since its first initiation during the late 1940s, following the establishment of agricultural and technical school of Ambo and Jimma...

. The Center speciales in agricultural research

Agriculture in Ethiopia

Agriculture in Ethiopia is the foundation of the country's economy, accounting for half of gross domestic product , 83.9% of exports, and 80% of total employment....

, which includes serving as the national center for research to improve the yield of coffee

Coffee

Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...

, and spices.

External links

• Cities of Ethiopia: Jimma by John Graham (Addis Tribune, 21 December 2001)
• Jimma University
• Jimma Times
• MSN Map