Kebri Mangest

Kebri Mangest (Amharic "Glory of the State"; also known as Adola or Angedi) is a town in southeastern Ethiopia. Located in the Borena Zone of the Oromia Region, this town has a latitude and longitude of coord|05|53|N|38|59|E with an altitude of 1758 meters above sea level.

Kebri Mangest is served by a network of roads. A new road to Shakiso was built around 1960. Two years later an all weather road reached the town from the north and a dry weather road south to Negele Boran. [http://130.238.24.99/library/resources/dossiers/local_history_of_ethiopia/k/ORTKEY.pdf "Local History in Ethiopia"] (pdf) The Nordic Africa Institute website (accessed 29 November 2007)]

The gold mine near Kebre Mangest has been the most historically important gold mine in Ethiopia since its opening in 1941; in 1944, for example, its revenue came to nearly a fifth of the total government budget. However in the public vocabulary, according to the Ethiopian historian Bahru Zewde, the name of the town signified "terror both in the forcible recruitment of labour and in the conditions of penal servitude that prevailed in the labour camp." [Ref Ethiopia|BahruZewde-2001|pages= p. 200]

Based on figures from the Central Statistical Agency in 2005, this town has an estimated total population of 36,053 of whom 18,732 were males and 17,321 were females. [ [http://www.csa.gov.et/text_files/2005_national_statistics.htm CSA 2005 National Statistics] , Table B.4] The 1994 national census reported this town had a total population of 20,136 of whom 10,159 were males and 9,977 were females. It is the larger of two towns in Adolana Wadera woreda.

Kebri Mangest was founded during the Italian occupation; a British soldier who travelled through the area wrote in his memoirs that he remembered a "long, wooded valley with a few recently-built villas, the beginning of a new Italian settlement named Adola", as well as rumors that the Italians had found gold in the area.

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