Dembiya

 ( Historical Geography Of Ethiopia ) 

Dembiya (Amharic language: ደምቢያ Dembīyā; also transliterated Dembea, Dambya, Dembya, Dambiya, etc.) is a historic region of Ethiopia, intimately linked with Lake Tana. According to the account of Manuel de Almeida, Dembiya was "bounded on East by Begemder, on South by Gojjam, on West by of Achefer and Tangha. Lake Tana, formerly called Dambaya, is in this region."The region included the current woredas of Dembiya, Gondar zuriya, Libo Kemkem, Fogera, Dera. Takusa and Alefa. Dembiya encircled more than 89% of lake Tana (previously called lake Dembiya).Quoted in H. Weld Blundell, The Royal chronicle of Abyssinia, 1769-1840, (Cambridge: University Press, 1922), p. 538 The region was governed by Ahmed ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi and also served well as his personal residence and seat of government during the Ethiopian-Adal War. The rest of the province was divided among the Adalite soldiers while the native Amhara people population served as peasant farmers.

Alexander Murray, in his preface to the third volume of James Bruce account, further describes it as "on the east it includes Fogera, Dara, and Alata; on the north-east Gondar, the metropolis, and the rich district beneath it; on the southwest, the district of Bed (the plain barren country) and, on the west, the lands around Waindaga and Dengel Ber." Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, (1805 edition), vol. 3 p. 9

Dembiya was incorporated into the Begemder province (which previously only included lands to the east of Lake Tana) during the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie, and in 1996 became a woreda of the Amhara Region.

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