Dek Island(Amharic:ደቅ ደሴትDäq Däset) is the biggest island (approximately 16 square kilometers in size) onLake TanainEthiopia.It is administratively included in theBahir Dar Zuriaworeda of theMirab Gojjam Zone.To the southeast of Dek is the much smallerDaga Island.
 Church ofNarga Selassie | |
 | |
| Geography | |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 11°55′N37°16′E/ 11.917°N 37.267°E |
| Area | 16 km2(6.2 sq mi) |
| Administration | |
Ethiopia | |
| Region | Amhara |
| Zone | Misraq Gojjam |
| Woreda | Bahir Dar Zuria |
| Demographics | |
| Population | 4,816 (2007) |
Overview
edit
Dek Island is home to severalmonasteries,the best-known beingNarga Selassie.Dek is accessible by theferrythat runs fromBahir DartoGorgora.[1]Hormuzd Rassammentions visiting the island in February 1866, describing that at the time it contained four villages with a church attached to each one. Rassam also repeats the story told to him howDejazmachKassa (the later EmperorTewodros II) captured Dek in a single assault.[2]
When R.E. Cheesman visited Dek in 1932 and 1933, he found that it was not strictly "monasterial", but with five churches each with a small village nearby. Cheesman continues his description:
- Three-quarters of the island is given up to plough, the chief crops being dagusa and teff, both dwarf millets. Plough-land is divided into plots of about an acre, separated from each other by narrow hedges of scrub forest and big trees. The base of the island is scoriaceous lava in cubes, which are exposed all around the shore and washed by the waves, and identified as vesicular olivine basalt. On the top is a thin layer of red soil derived from the decay of the basalts. The fauna consists chiefly of birds and butterflies that can fly the 5 miles. Animals, as may be expected, are almost absent, though I trapped two kinds of rat; big Python s are numerous in the reed beds and are sometimes found exhausted out at sea and have been known to land on tankwas as unwelcome passengers. Mosquitoes on the islands were very bad.[3]
Demographics
editBased on the 2007 national census conducted by theCentral Statistical Agencyof Ethiopia (CSA), thekebelewhich includes Dek has a total population of 4,816, of whom 2,503 are men and 2,313 women; a total of 1,218 households were counted in this kebele, resulting in an average of 3.95 persons to a household, which less than the woreda average of 4.45 persons, and 1,197 housing units.[4]The 1994 national census reported a total population for this woreda of 5,099 people in 1,028 households, of whom 2,683 were men and 2,416 were women.[5]
Notes
edit- ^As attested in a number of tour books, for example Philip Briggs,Guide to Ethiopia,third edition (Old Saybrook: Globe Pequot Press, 2003), pp. 194f
- ^Hormuzd Rassam,Narrative of the British Mission to Theodore of Abyssinia(London, 1869), vol. 1 pp. 315f
- ^R.E. Cheesman,"Lake Tana and Its Islands",Geographical Journal,85(1935), p. 495
- ^Census 2007 Tables: Amhara RegionArchivedNovember 14, 2010, at theWayback Machine,Annex Table IB.
- ^1994 Population and Housing Census of Ethiopia: Results for Amhara Region,Vol. 1, part 1ArchivedNovember 15, 2010, at theWayback Machine,Annex Table II.2 (accessed 9 April 2009)