# Shashamane
**Shashamane** (also spelled Shashemene; Amharic: ሻሸመኔ) is a city in the West Arsi Zone of the Oromia Region of Ethiopia, roughly 250 km south of [Addis Ababa](https://www.edgepedia.org/addis-ababa) on the Addis Ababa–Moyale highway.[1](https://www.shashecity.gov.et/) • [2](https://mui.gov.et/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Urban-Profile-of-shashemene-2018.pdf) It is a commercial and agricultural market center for the Rift Valley, and it is internationally known for the [Rastafari](https://www.edgepedia.org/rastafari) settlement established on land granted there by Emperor Haile Selassie I in the mid-twentieth century.[1](https://www.shashecity.gov.et/) • [3](https://horizon.documentation.ird.fr/exl-doc/pleins_textes/divers17-04/010056103.pdf)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Location | West Arsi Zone, Oromia Region; about 250 km south of Addis Ababa on the Addis Ababa–Moyale highway[1](https://www.shashecity.gov.et/) • [2](https://mui.gov.et/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Urban-Profile-of-shashemene-2018.pdf) |
| Population | About 208,400 (GeoNames); a 2024 city socio-economic profile gives 658,557 including two incorporated towns and surrounding rural kebeles[4](https://www.geonames.org/328689) • [5](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/21650020.2026.2622226) |
| Altitude and climate | 1,930 m above sea level; mean annual temperature 18.4 °C; average annual rainfall 1,500–2,000 mm[1](https://www.shashecity.gov.et/) • [2](https://mui.gov.et/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Urban-Profile-of-shashemene-2018.pdf) |
| Land grant | Five gashas, or 200 hectares (500 acres), granted by Emperor Haile Selassie to the Ethiopian World Federation in thanks for support during the Italian occupation (1935–1941)[3](https://horizon.documentation.ird.fr/exl-doc/pleins_textes/divers17-04/010056103.pdf) • [6](https://www.himchurch.org/Internet_Sites_Articles/The-History-and-Location-of-the-Shashamane-Settlement-Commun.htm) |
| Rastafari settlement | Home to a Rastafari community since the 1950s–1960s; estimates of the Rastafari population ranged from 250 to 1,000 up to 2018[1](https://www.shashecity.gov.et/) • [7](https://www.scielo.br/j/vb/a/ppgLNKdfWmsCrjYJw7mdrTf/?lang=en) |
| Economy | Agricultural market hub for West Arsi, known for fruit markets and fertile farmlands; trade, agro-processing, and manufacturing are the main activities[1](https://www.shashecity.gov.et/) • [2](https://mui.gov.et/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Urban-Profile-of-shashemene-2018.pdf) |
| Administration | Own municipal administration since 1935/36; four sub-cities and twelve kebeles; zone capital of West Arsi[2](https://mui.gov.et/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Urban-Profile-of-shashemene-2018.pdf) |
## The city
The town's name is traced in the official urban profile to a well-known Oromo woman called "Shashe", who sold tella (a local beverage) and food to merchants, so that her house became known as "mana shashe" (Shashe's house).[2](https://mui.gov.et/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Urban-Profile-of-shashemene-2018.pdf) The settlement emerged from commercial activity linking southern, south-western, and south-eastern Ethiopia, and it has had its own municipal administration since 1935/36.[2](https://mui.gov.et/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Urban-Profile-of-shashemene-2018.pdf)
Shashamane sits where Ethiopia's main transport routes meet. It lies on the Trans-African Highway running from Cairo to [Cape Town](https://www.edgepedia.org/cape-town), and it serves as a gateway between Addis Ababa, Hawassa, southern Ethiopia, and neighboring Kenya.[2](https://mui.gov.et/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Urban-Profile-of-shashemene-2018.pdf) The city administration describes it as a gateway city on Ethiopia's historic north–south corridor.[1](https://www.shashecity.gov.et/) Under Oromia's cities re-establishment proclamation No. 195/2008, Shashemene holds the rank of a principal city administration (regiopolis).[8](https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099816006182431564/pdf/IDU-0bdd76fd-ee3c-4bfb-83f4-4fb99c3de66a.pdf)
Population figures differ according to the area they cover. GeoNames lists about 208,400 residents for the city,[4](https://www.geonames.org/328689) and the city administration's portal gives a figure of 208 thousand.[1](https://www.shashecity.gov.et/) A 2024 socio-economic profile cited in a municipal study gives 658,557 people in 174,000 households, a figure that includes two incorporated towns and surrounding rural kebeles.[5](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/21650020.2026.2622226) The town's ethnic composition is predominantly Oromo (74.11%), followed by Amhara (9.26%), Wolayita (5%), Kembata (2.3%), and Gurage (2.13%).[2](https://mui.gov.et/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Urban-Profile-of-shashemene-2018.pdf)
## The land grant
During the Italian occupation of Ethiopia (1935–1941), people of African descent in the Caribbean, the Americas, and elsewhere raised moral and financial support for Ethiopia. As a token of appreciation, Emperor Haile Selassie granted land at Shashemene to the [Ethiopian World Federation](https://www.edgepedia.org/ethiopian-world-federation) (EWF), inviting the "black people of the world" to come to Ethiopia, settle, and contribute to the country's development.[3](https://horizon.documentation.ird.fr/exl-doc/pleins_textes/divers17-04/010056103.pdf) The grant covered five gashas, or 200 hectares, of fertile land on the periphery of the town.[3](https://horizon.documentation.ird.fr/exl-doc/pleins_textes/divers17-04/010056103.pdf) Sources date the grant differently: the Bonacci interview article states 1950,[3](https://horizon.documentation.ird.fr/exl-doc/pleins_textes/divers17-04/010056103.pdf) the Shashamane Settlement Community Development Foundation history states 1948,[6](https://www.himchurch.org/Internet_Sites_Articles/The-History-and-Location-of-the-Shashamane-Settlement-Commun.htm) and the Smithsonian's "Dread History" exhibition states 1955.[9](https://www.smithsonianeducation.org/migrations/rasta/pic25.html) The grant was administered by the EWF's headquarters in New York City.[10](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank-Jan-Van-Dijk/publication/384677326_Jahmaica_Rastafari_and_Jamaican_society_1930-1990_v2023/links/6702c4ac9e6e82486f073136/Jahmaica-Rastafari-and-Jamaican-society-1930-1990-v2023.pdf)
**First settlers.** The first settlers were neither Rastafarians nor Jamaicans. James and Helen Piper, originally from [Montserrat](https://www.edgepedia.org/montserrat), moved to Addis Ababa in 1955 with help from the EWF's New York headquarters and later settled on the grant to cultivate part of the 500 acres; they remained its sole occupants until the mid-1960s.[10](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank-Jan-Van-Dijk/publication/384677326_Jahmaica_Rastafari_and_Jamaican_society_1930-1990_v2023/links/6702c4ac9e6e82486f073136/Jahmaica-Rastafari-and-Jamaican-society-1930-1990-v2023.pdf) Rastafari, for whom Ethiopia is the [Promised Land](https://www.edgepedia.org/promised-land), first reached Africa when the first Rasta settlers of the Shashamane grant arrived in the early or mid-1960s.[10](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank-Jan-Van-Dijk/publication/384677326_Jahmaica_Rastafari_and_Jamaican_society_1930-1990_v2023/links/6702c4ac9e6e82486f073136/Jahmaica-Rastafari-and-Jamaican-society-1930-1990-v2023.pdf) Among them was Noel Dyer, a Jamaican Rastafarian who traveled from England to Shashamane on foot, a journey that took him a year.[10](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank-Jan-Van-Dijk/publication/384677326_Jahmaica_Rastafari_and_Jamaican_society_1930-1990_v2023/links/6702c4ac9e6e82486f073136/Jahmaica-Rastafari-and-Jamaican-society-1930-1990-v2023.pdf) In 1969 a group of twelve EWF members, the Pioneer Corps, arrived in Ethiopia, its journey funded by the EWF's Ethiopian Settlement Fund.[10](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank-Jan-Van-Dijk/publication/384677326_Jahmaica_Rastafari_and_Jamaican_society_1930-1990_v2023/links/6702c4ac9e6e82486f073136/Jahmaica-Rastafari-and-Jamaican-society-1930-1990-v2023.pdf) Between 1952 and 1974 approximately 22 families migrated to take up the grant, the great majority from Jamaica.[6](https://www.himchurch.org/Internet_Sites_Articles/The-History-and-Location-of-the-Shashamane-Settlement-Commun.htm)
## Migration waves and nationalization
Scholarly accounts identify three periods of organized migration to Shashamane, in the 1950s, the 1970s, and the 1990s.[7](https://www.scielo.br/j/vb/a/ppgLNKdfWmsCrjYJw7mdrTf/?lang=en) The first consisted of EWF members, some of them not Rastafari. The second influx came from the [Twelve Tribes of Israel](https://www.edgepedia.org/twelve-tribes-of-israel) organization in Jamaica in the 1970s. Rastafari of the Theocratic Order of Nyahbinghi and the Ethiopia Africa Black International Congress (Bobo Ashanti) arrived for the centenary of [Haile Selassie](https://www.edgepedia.org/haile-selassie)'s birth in 1992 and remained.[7](https://www.scielo.br/j/vb/a/ppgLNKdfWmsCrjYJw7mdrTf/?lang=en) More recently, self-funded repatriates have arrived, and Rastafari from Twelve Tribes branches in several Caribbean countries have visited.[7](https://www.scielo.br/j/vb/a/ppgLNKdfWmsCrjYJw7mdrTf/?lang=en) Since 1992, the settlement has served as a growing focal point for the Rastafari movement's identification with Africa.[9](https://www.smithsonianeducation.org/migrations/rasta/pic25.html) Repatriates have come mainly from Jamaica but also from [Trinidad and Tobago](https://www.edgepedia.org/trinidad-and-tobago), Barbados, St Vincent, Guyana, Guadeloupe, Haiti, and urban centers in North America and the United Kingdom.[11](https://www.persee.fr/doc/ethio_0066-2127_2002_num_18_1_1025)
**Nationalization.** In 1975 the Provisional Military Government (the Derg) issued a land reform proclamation nationalizing all land in Ethiopia, including the Shashamane grant.[6](https://www.himchurch.org/Internet_Sites_Articles/The-History-and-Location-of-the-Shashamane-Settlement-Commun.htm) After the remaining Jamaican settlers petitioned through the Embassy of Jamaica in 1976, 100 acres were returned and divided among the settlers.[6](https://www.himchurch.org/Internet_Sites_Articles/The-History-and-Location-of-the-Shashamane-Settlement-Commun.htm) The community's legal status remained ambiguous for decades afterward, a source of repeated petitions.[12](https://nutanica.com/Shashemene) By one foundation account the settlement's population had grown to over 200, of whom 65% were children born on the land, and it represented the largest community of Jamaicans residing in Africa.[6](https://www.himchurch.org/Internet_Sites_Articles/The-History-and-Location-of-the-Shashamane-Settlement-Commun.htm) Scholarly estimates of the Rastafari population in Shashamane up to 2018 ranged from 250 to 1,000.[7](https://www.scielo.br/j/vb/a/ppgLNKdfWmsCrjYJw7mdrTf/?lang=en)
## Rastafari and local society
The Rastafari neighborhood on the grant is known as Jamaica Safar (the Jamaica sefer, or Jamaican quarter), on the outskirts of the town.[3](https://horizon.documentation.ird.fr/exl-doc/pleins_textes/divers17-04/010056103.pdf) • [7](https://www.scielo.br/j/vb/a/ppgLNKdfWmsCrjYJw7mdrTf/?lang=en) Its repatriate population includes members of the four principal Rastafari groupings: the Ethiopian World Federation, the Twelve Tribes of Israel, the Bobo Ashanti, and the Nyahbinghi, along with some unaffiliated Rastafari.[13](https://journals.sta.uwi.edu/ojs/index.php/toutmoun/article/download/8752/7187/13863) The land grant is, in Rastafari terms, the symbolic center of global Rastafari imaginings of black autonomy.[7](https://www.scielo.br/j/vb/a/ppgLNKdfWmsCrjYJw7mdrTf/?lang=en)
Relations with the surrounding population have not been simple. The anthropologist Giulia Bonacci, a researcher of the Rastafari repatriation to Ethiopia, wrote in 2002 that the Rasta presence, though marginal, was persistent, and that it surprised and sometimes offended Ethiopians.[11](https://www.persee.fr/doc/ethio_0066-2127_2002_num_18_1_1025) A widely circulated local story, noted by Erin MacLeod, holds that the imperial state granted the land to Rastafari to spy on Oromo residents, either as punishment or as intimidation.[7](https://www.scielo.br/j/vb/a/ppgLNKdfWmsCrjYJw7mdrTf/?lang=en) The settlement has nonetheless produced intercultural households in the Jamaica Safar and in local Ethiopian neighborhoods of the city.[7](https://www.scielo.br/j/vb/a/ppgLNKdfWmsCrjYJw7mdrTf/?lang=en) The Jamaican Rastafarian Development Community (JRDC) runs a school in the settlement, which began in 1975 as home schooling for six children and was later formally established.[14](https://www.divinityatlas.com/sacred-sites/shashamane)
## Economy and services
Shashemene is a trading hub for the fertile farmlands of West Arsi and is famous for its fruit markets.[1](https://www.shashecity.gov.et/) Its main economic activities are trade, agro-processing, manufacturing of wooden products and handicrafts, urban agriculture, and services including hotels, schools, and colleges.[2](https://mui.gov.et/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Urban-Profile-of-shashemene-2018.pdf) Agricultural products such as wheat and livestock flow into the city from surrounding districts including Gedeb Hasassa, Dodola, Kofele, Negele Arsi, Kore, Shire, and Adaba.[2](https://mui.gov.et/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Urban-Profile-of-shashemene-2018.pdf) The city has 202 schools, one referral hospital, and a structural plan covering 17,119 hectares prepared in 2023 and running to 2033.[2](https://mui.gov.et/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Urban-Profile-of-shashemene-2018.pdf)
## References
1. [Shashemene City Administration — Official Portal](https://www.shashecity.gov.et/)
2. [Urban Profile of Shashemene City, Lead Executive Office of Urban Planning and Urbanization, Ministry of Urban and Infrastructure](https://mui.gov.et/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Urban-Profile-of-shashemene-2018.pdf)
3. [Giulia Bonacci (2011). An Interview in Zion: The Life-History of a Jamaican Rastafarian in Shashemene, Ethiopia. Callaloo 34(3).](https://horizon.documentation.ird.fr/exl-doc/pleins_textes/divers17-04/010056103.pdf)
4. [Shashamane, Ethiopia, GeoNames](https://www.geonames.org/328689)
5. [Factors affecting the sustainable solid waste management: the case of Shashemene City, Ethiopia](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/21650020.2026.2622226)
6. [The History and Location of the Shashamane Settlement Community Development Foundation, Inc., USA](https://www.himchurch.org/Internet_Sites_Articles/The-History-and-Location-of-the-Shashamane-Settlement-Commun.htm)
7. [Notes on a Rastafari Yard-Space in Urban Ethiopia, Vibrant: Virtual Brazilian Anthropology](https://www.scielo.br/j/vb/a/ppgLNKdfWmsCrjYJw7mdrTf/?lang=en)
8. [World Bank, Environmental and Social Impact Assessment, Fecal Sludge Treatment Plant, Shashemene City](https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099816006182431564/pdf/IDU-0bdd76fd-ee3c-4bfb-83f4-4fb99c3de66a.pdf)
9. [Dread History: The African Diaspora, Ethiopianism, and Rastafari, Smithsonian Institution](https://www.smithsonianeducation.org/migrations/rasta/pic25.html)
10. [Frank Jan van Dijk, Jahmaica: Rastafari and Jamaican Society 1930–1990](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank-Jan-Van-Dijk/publication/384677326_Jahmaica_Rastafari_and_Jamaican_society_1930-1990_v2023/links/6702c4ac9e6e82486f073136/Jahmaica-Rastafari-and-Jamaican-society-1930-1990-v2023.pdf)
11. [Giulia Bonacci (2002). Le 'Rapatriement' des Rastafaris en Éthiopie. Annales d'Éthiopie 18.](https://www.persee.fr/doc/ethio_0066-2127_2002_num_18_1_1025)
12. [Shashemene, Nutanica](https://nutanica.com/Shashemene)
13. [Tout Moun: The repatriate population of the Jamaica Safar](https://journals.sta.uwi.edu/ojs/index.php/toutmoun/article/download/8752/7187/13863)
14. [Shashamane — Sacred Sites, Divinity Atlas](https://www.divinityatlas.com/sacred-sites/shashamane)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Places and geography › Settlements and neighborhoods › Cities and towns › Cities, towns, and villages of Africa and Oceania › Cities of East and Southern Africa › Cities of Ethiopia*
*Initially written Oct 21, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license