Arba Minch

Arba Minch, also called Ganta Garo, is a city and separate woreda in the southern part of Ethiopia, in the Gamo Zone of the South Ethiopia Regional State, about 500 kilometres south of Addis Ababa at an elevation of 1285 metres. Its name means forty springs, after the more than forty springs that feed a groundwater forest at the western base of the Great Rift Valley. The city has an uptown administrative centre, Shecha, and a downtown commercial and residential area, Sikela, four kilometres away and joined to it by a paved road; beyond Sikela is the gate to Nechisar National Park, which covers the isthmus between Lake Abaya and Lake Chamo. Founded in the early 1960s, it succeeded Chencha as capital of the Gamo Gofa province and has since served as capital of the successive administrative units of the area, today the Gamo Zone. The 2007 census counted 74,879 people.