Goba

Infobox Settlement
official_name = Goba
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pushpin_label_position = right
pushpin_map_caption = Location within Ethiopia
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subdivision_type = Country
subdivision_name = Ethiopia
subdivision_type1 = Region
subdivision_name1 = Oromia
subdivision_type2 = Zone
subdivision_name2 = Bale
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population_as_of = 2005
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population_total = 50,650
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timezone = EAT
utc_offset = +3
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latd=7 |latm=0 |latNS=N
longd=39 |longm=59 |longEW=E
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elevation_m = 2743
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footnotes = Goba is a town in south-central Ethiopia. Located in the Bale Zone of the Oromia Region approximately 446 km southeast of Addis Ababa, this city has a latitude and longitude of coord|7|0|N|39|59|E|region:ET-OR_type:city(50650) and an elevation of 2743 meters above sea level. It is the administrative center of Goba woreda.

The town is known for its Wednesday market and for honey, basketry and cotton shawl making; Bale National Park is 10 km to the southwest. A few kilometers outside of Goba are the remains of an old rock church. [Camerapix, "Spectrum Guide to Ethiopia" (Brooklyn: Interlink, 2000), p. 154] Goba shares Robe Airport (ICAO code HAGB, IATA GOB) with neighbouring Robe, from which Ethiopian Airlines operates flights to Addis Ababa.

Based on figures from the Central Statistical Agency in 2005, this town has an estimated total population of 50,650 of whom 24,256 were males and 26,394 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 28,358 of whom 13,155 were males and 15,203 were females.

History

Goba was the capital of the former Bale Province, until the province was abolished with the adoption of the constitution of 1995. A telephone line connected Goba to Addis Ababa at least as early as 1936. [http://130.238.24.99/library/resources/dossiers/local_history_of_ethiopia/g/ORGIR.pdf "Local History in Ethiopia"] (pdf) The Nordic Africa Institute website (accessed 16 November 2007)] During the Bale revolt, rebels attacked the capital twice between November 1965 and March 1966. [Gebru Tareke, "Ethiopia: Power and Protest: Peasant Revolts in the Twentieth Century "(Lawrenceville: Red Sea, 1996), p. 145] In 1970 the town had the only high school in Bale Province; that year the school had 682 students, of whom 86 were Muslims in a province where Islam claimed over 90 per cent of the population. As Gebru Tareke grimly concludes, "Between February 1970, when the revolt ended, and February 1974, when the imperial regime collapsed, precious little had changed in Bale, as indeed in the rest of Ethiopia." [Gebru Tareke, "Ethiopia", p. 158]

According to the third edition of the Lonely Planet guide to Ethiopia, "Goba is in a state of decline and Ethiopian Airlines has even cancelled its flights here." [Matt Philips and Jean-Bernard Carillet, "Ethiopia and Eritrea", third edition (n.p.: Lonely Planet, 2006), p. 190]

References