North Shewa Zone (Amhara)

North Shewa ሰሜን ሸዋ
Zone
Country	Ethiopia
Region	Amhara
Largest city	Debre Berhan
Area [1]
• Total	15,936.13 km2 (6,152.97 sq mi)
Population  (2007)[1]
• Total	1,837,490
• Density	120/km2 (300/sq mi)

North Shewa (Amharic: ሰሜን ሸዋ, romanized: Semiēn Shewa) is a zone in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia. North Shewa takes its name from the kingdom and former province of Shewa. The Zone is bordered on the south and the west by the Oromia Region, on the north by South Wollo, on the northeast by the Oromia Zone, and on the east by the Afar Region. The highest point in the Zone is Mount Abuye Meda (4012 meters), which is found in the Gish woreda; other prominent peaks include Mount Megezez. Towns in North Shewa include Ankober, Debre Birhan, and Shewa Robit.

The administrative subdivisions of this Zone have been renamed, divided, and their boundaries were redrawn numerous times between the 1994 and 2007 national censuses far more often than any other Zone in the Amhara Region. As a result, its subdivisions can be very confusing; Svein Ege, in his comparison of how the Central Statistical Agency (CSA) and the Ethiopian Mapping Authority reported the administrative boundaries in this Zone and how they changed between 1994 and 2004, stopped halfway through this Zone, stating that he had run out of time to perform field checking.^[2]