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Why visit Āwash
Townapedia lists 6 places to stay in and around town.
Weather in Āwash
Forecast from MET Norway (CC BY 4.0). Full forecast
About Āwash
Awash Subah is a market town in central Ethiopia. Located in Administrative Zone 3 of the Afar Region, above a gorge on the Awash River, after which the town is named, the town lies on the Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway, which crosses the gorge by a bridge there. It is the largest settlement in Awash Fentale woreda.
From the Wikipedia article Awash, Ethiopia (this version), under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Where to stay6
Gas and EV charging4
Healthcare1
History
An iron bridge over the Awash had been built at the present location of Awash by Emperor Menelik II's favorite, Alfred Ilg, around 1890; this bridge replaced an earlier wooden one. The construction had to face the great difficulty of transporting the girders from Djibouti, but once the material had arrived, the structure had been finished in ten days; however Emperor Menelik had used for other purposes the cement imported from Europe to build the bridge with. When Count Gleichen encountered the bridge in 1897, during his mission to Emperor Menelik, he found "the bridge would be too weak to stand anything but ordinary pack-animal traffic. For nine months in the year it is blocked at each end by a broad abattis of thorn-bush, - to prevent people from using it when the river is fordable, - but during the rains it is left open."
Awash grew up around the railroad station, which was opened not long after 1917 when the railway had reached this far into Ethiopia. A hotel for passengers was built in Awash about that time. The fourth post office in Ethiopia (after Harar, Dire Dawa and Addis Ababa) was established in Awash on 1 September 1923, but it may not have been much of a point of origin and arrival but rather a place on the line between the capital and the coast.
From the History section of Awash, Ethiopia on Wikipedia, under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Map of Āwash
11 places. The map loads OpenStreetMap tiles when you open it.
Getting there and nearby towns
- Metahāra 29 km west, about 29 min by car
- Gelemso 43 km southeast, about 43 min by car
- Bedēsa 69 km east, about 1 h 15 min by car
- Mī’ēso 70 km northeast, about 1 h 15 min by car
- Āsbe Teferī 78 km east, about 1 h 15 min by car
- Welench’ītī 88 km southwest, about 1 h 30 min by car
Drive times are estimates from straight-line distance, not routes.
Local news
Headlines from INDB.
Reviews, tips and questions
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Sources and licences
- GeoNames (CC BY 4.0): population, coordinates, regions and time zone
- OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL 1.0): places, airports, map data
- Wikidata (CC0 1.0): elevation, founding date, time zone, website
- Wikimedia Commons (see each image): photos
- Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0): overview and history text
Photo credits
- Awash-Route (4), Ji-Elle, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Chamak, Ahmed seid chamak, CC BY-SA 4.0
Page built November 4, 2026. Spotted a mistake? Tell us or suggest a place.