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Metemma (also known as Metemma Yohannes) is a town in northwestern Ethiopia, on the border with Sudan. Located in the Semien Gondar Zone of the Amhara Region, Metemma has a longitude and latitude of 12°58′N, 36°12′E. Across the border is the corresponding Sudanese village of Gallabat.

Based on figures from the Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia published in 2005, Metemma has an estimated population of 3132 males and 2449 females for a total population of 5581.^[1] It is one of three towns in Metemma woreda.

Metemma hosts an airport, (ICAO code HAMM, IATA ETE).

The town traces its origins to the 18th century, when a colony of Takruri from Darfur finding the spot a convenient resting-place for their fellow-pilgrims on their way to Mecca and back, obtained permission from the Emperor of Ethiopia to make a permanent settlement there. Lying on the main trade route from Sennar to Gondar (some 90 miles to the east by south), Metemma/Gallabat grew into a trade center of some importance. The Scottish explorer James Bruce (who called the town Hor-Cacamoot) travelled through the town in 1772. Metemma lay on the important trade route between the capital Gondar and Sudan, which made it not only a major marketplace, but also a major slave market in the 19th century. Richard Pankhurst has published estimates of the number of people sold in this market during the 19th century that range between 10,000 and 20,000.^[2] By 1881, European visitors reported that the Emperor Yohannes IV had ordered the slave market closed.^[3]

The trade route through Metemma remained important up to the beginning of the twentieth century, but the introduction of rail transport to Sudan, as well as improvements to the roads inside Ethiopia robbed the town of its importance. The disruptions of the Italian occupation likewise reduced traffic on this trade route, until by E.C. 1944 (AD 1952) an official survey found only 129 thatched and corrugated-roof houses in Matemma, of which "fourteen were government properties, three were owned by nagades and twelve were empty -- probably reserved for renting."^[4]

1. ^ CSA 2005 National Statistics, Table B.4.
2. ^ Richard R.K. Pankhurst, An Economic History of Ethiopia (Addis Ababa: Haile Selassie University Press, 1968), p. 84.
3. ^ Pankhurst, p. 98
4. ^ The survey of the housing in Metemma was dated Ginbot 19, which falls in late May. Solomon Getamun, History of the City of Gondar (Africa World Press, 2005), pp. 100f.

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