What is "gurgura"

Gurgura is one of the four woredas in the chartered city of Dire Dawa in Ethiopia. It is named for an ethnic group which lives in the area, the Gurgura; because there are records of a subgroup of the Nole Oromo with that name, as well as a sub-clan of the Somali Dir clan, it is unclear which one of these groups this woreda is named for. The administrative center of Gurgura is Melka Jebdu.

The woreda of Gurgura was in existence as early as 1964, when its administrative center was at Kersa. Following the end of the Ethiopian Civil War, it was the only woreda without a zone or a kilil because the federal government did not want Dire Dawa to be surrounded by the Somali State and the Somali Gurguras did not want to be part of Oromia. In the end it became part of Dire Dawa.