Dire Dawa Administrative Council Integrated Resource

Water Works Design and Supervision Enterprise
2.2.3 Population Characteristics and Social Indicators
a) Ethnic composition
The urban center of Dire Dawa, consists of heterogeneous groups of people in terms of
ethnicity where as the rural community is relatively is characterized by relative
homogeneity in various aspects. According to the report of 1994 Population and Housing
Census result, the following are the five largest ethnic groups living in DDAC: Oromo
(48%) Amara (27.7%), Somalie (13.9%), Guragie (4.5%) and Tigray (1.8%) Harari
(1.7%) are the five largest ethnic groups living in DDAC.
From the total 173, 188 urban population size of the Council, Oromo ethnic group
represent 69,564 (40.2%), Amhara 53,843 (31.1%), Somalie 23,826 (13.8 %), Guragie
11,381 (7%) and Tigray 4,448 (2.6%) & Harari 4214 (2.4%).
The ethnic composition of the rural population shows that Oromos (with population of
67053), and Somalies (with a population size of 11200) make up the major dominant
groups, representing 85.2 and 14.3 per cent, respectively, of the total rural population.The
1994 Census result elicited 78,676 as the total rural population size of the council out of
these total rural population size of the council; Oromo(67,053) and Somalie(11,220)
found to be the major dominant ethnic groups settling in the rural community
representing 85.2 and 14.3 percent respectively.
b) Population Characteristics
The population characteristics of the DDAC for 1994 is summarized and it is compared
with the 1994 census of the country as a whole in the following table.
Table 4 Population and Social Indicators- 1994
INDICATORS
DDAC as per 1994 Ethiopia as per
census
1994 census
Urban Rural
1. Population and Health
1.1 Rural population % of total 68.8 31.2
1.2 Crude Birth rate, /1000 females 34.7 43.6
1.3 Gross fertility, /1000 females 122.6 203.8
1.4 Total Fertility rate: no. of children 4.28 6.91
1.5 Infant mortality < 1yr: /1000 122 103
1.6 Infant mortality