Towns and Villages in Dire Dawa

Dire Dawa (Somali: Diridhaba, meaning “where the Somali ancestor Dir hit his spear into the ground” or “The true Dir”, Amharic: ድሬዳዋ, Harari: ድሬዳዋ, lit. “Plain of Medicine”; Oromo: Dirree Dhawaa, lit. ’Place of Remedy’; Arabic: ديري داوا) is a city in eastern Ethiopia between the Oromia and Somali Region borders, and one of Ethiopia’s two chartered cities (the other being the capital, Addis Abeba).

Dire Dawa and the present-day Sitti Zone were part of the Dire Dawa autonomous area established in the 1987 Ethiopian Constitution until 1993, when the federal government divided it into an independently controlled chartered city.

It is administratively divided into two woredas: the city proper and the non-urban woreda of Gurgura.

The predicted population for July 1, 2015 was 440,000 for the entire chartered city and 277,000 for the city proper, making it Ethiopia’s eighth largest city.

According to the Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia’s 2007 Census, Dire Dawa had a population of 341,834, with 171,461 men and 170,461 women.

The urban population numbered 233,224, accounting for 68.23% of the total.