Gurage Zone in the context of "Oromia Region"

Gurage (/ɡʊəˈrɑːɡeɪ/, Gurage: ጉራጌ) are a Semitic-speaking ethnic group inhabiting Ethiopia. They inhabit the Gurage Zone and East Gurage Zone, a fertile, semi-mountainous region in Central Ethiopia Regional State, about 125 kilometers southwest of Addis Ababa, bordering the Awash River in the north, the Gibe River, a tributary of the Omo River, to the southwest, and Hora-Dambal in the east.

According to the 2007 Ethiopian national census, the Gurage can also be found in substantial numbers in Addis Ababa, Oromia Region, Harari Region and Dire Dawa.

The Soddo or Kistane (Gurage: ክስታኔ; endonym: Aymellel, Gordena) are a subgroup of the Gurage who inhabit the south-central part of Ethiopia, considered the northern geographic and linguistic subset of the Gurage and speak the Soddo Gurage language or Kistanigna (ክስታንኛ). They primarily inhabit the Soddo (woreda) in the Gurage Zone, but large amounts also live in various parts of Ethiopia, particularly in Addis Abeba, Nazret, Butajira, and Dire Dawa. They are related to the Sebat Bet Gurage and other Gurage sub-groups, however, in contrast to the Sebat Bet Gurage and Silte, they are exclusively and almost entirely Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Christians. The Soddo Gurage are known for and pride themselves on their Orthodox Christian identity, which they have historically practiced since ancient times, and from which their name Kistane (lit. Christian) derives its name, as it is the traditional and preferred name by locals for the people, although Soddo is still popularly used.

The Soddo or Kistane Gurage are related to their fellow Gurages. Geographically, they almost entirely border the Oromo to the North, West, and East. To the south, they border the Dobi-Gogot to the south, the Meskan and Mareqo to the southeast, and to a small degree with the Wolane or Gedebano to the southwest. They historically shared considerable geographic and linguistic polity with the Gafat, now an extinct group, and once encompassed territory that stretched widely to Gojjam and Kingdom of Damot in the west before the incursions of the Oromo migrations.

East Gurage Zone (Amharic: ምስራቅ ጉራጌ ዞን) is a zonal administration in the Central Ethiopia Regional State of Ethiopia. East Gurage Zone is established in 2023 by union of three districts and two town administrations from eastern part of Gurage Zone. The Zone is home to the Gurage people and others. East Gurage is bordered on the Southeast by Siltʼe Zone North and East by the Oromia Region, and on the West by Gurage Zone. The Zone borders Mareko Special Woreda through its East Meskan District. The administrative centre of the Zone is Butajira.

Hadiyya (speakers call it Hadiyyisa, others sometimes call it Hadiyigna, Adiya, Adea, Adiye, Hadia, Hadiya, Hadya) is the language of the Hadiya people of Ethiopia. Over 1.2 million people speak Hadiyya, making it one of the ten major languages in Ethiopia. It is a Highland East Cushitic language of the Afroasiatic family. Most speakers live in the Hadiya Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region (SNNPR). The language has four recognized dialects—Leemo, Badawacho, Shashogo, and Sooro. These are mutually intelligible, with slight regional variations.

The closely related Libido language, located just to the north in the Mareko district of Gurage Zone, is very similar lexically, but has significant morphological differences. Historically oral, Hadiyya is now written using a Latin-based orthography, developed for educational and administrative use. Hadiyya has a set of complex consonant phonemes consisting of a glottal stop and a sonorant: /ʔr/, /ʔj/, /ʔw/, /ʔl/.