Debra Warq

Debra Warq lies in Gojjam, the historic provincial kingdom in the highlands of north-western Amhara, where steep valleys cut between plateau farms. Highland fields grew barley, teff and wheat, and the region's churches and monasteries gave the district its religious life.

The earliest recorded mention of Gojjam comes from a manuscript account of Amda Seyon's campaigns there and in Damot in 1316 and 1317, when the region was brought into the Ethiopian empire. Soldiers from Gojjam were afterwards described among the emperor's archers, spearmen, cavalry and infantry. By the 1450s maps and royal letters still recognised the region as a kingdom within the wider empire, although its ruler was subject to the emperor. Through the eighteenth century its influence spread gradually into the neighbouring country of Agawmeder.