Gurage is a zone named for the Gurage people, an HabeshaEthiosemitic-speaking ethnic group whose homeland lies in this zone. Most parts of this area are heavily eroded, which required farmers to protect their enset fields with stone and soil bunds. During the 1930s, about 20% of the land in Gurage was covered with natural forests, which has since been almost completely cut down. According to the historian Paul B. Henze, the Gurage people origins are explained by traditions of a military expedition to the south during the last years of the Kingdom of Aksum, which left military colonies that eventually became isolated from both northern Ethiopia and each other.
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