The western portion of the woreda covers a region known as Gar'alta. Gere-alta has always been an integral part of the former Enderta province, when Enderta was an independent province as well as when it was an awraja. During the imperial times, the Gere-alta woreda consisted of the western parts of the current Hawzen and Kilte Awulaelo districts. The capital of the Gere-alta district was located at the town of Tsigereda, nowadays located in the western part of the Kilte Awulaelo district. As described by Philip Briggs, the Gar'alta is "a fantastic spaghetti-western landscape of flat dry plains and towering rock outcrops" best known for its "35-odd rock-hewn churches, the largest concentration anywhere in Ethiopia." There are several monolithic churches in the woreda, including: Hawzen Tekle Haymanot ; Abuna Yemata Guh and Debre Maryam Qorqor ; and Dugem Selassie, Abuna Abraham Debre Tsion and Yohannes Maikudi. Abuna Yemata Guh is also notable for its wall and dome paintings that David Buxton has dated to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries "before the massive impact of external influences that occurred in the seventeenth century." One of the dome paintings represent nine of the Apostles, and the other eight of the Nine Saints, one of whom, Abuna Yem'ata, tradition credits founding the church.
Demographics
The population pyramid has a wide base, not unlike most other low-income countries. However, the two lower age groups show that the pyramid base has stopped widening; this concerns particularly the group of 0-9 years old with an even more pronounced effect in the group of 0-4 years old, thus indicating a timid onset of a demographic transition. This may be related to the improved health services and a changing position of women in the society. Indeed, a revised Family Code came into effect in 2000, advocating the principles of gender equality. This raised the minimum age of marriage from 15 to 18 years old and established women rights in terms of sharing any assets the household has accumulated. The Ethiopian penal code states that it is a crime to beat one’s wife, and harmful traditional practices such as early marriage, abduction and female genital mutilation are now also considered to be a crime. Nowadays, almost all children are going to school but girls frequently drop out when they reach the age of 13 to 15 years: schools have no facilities for menstrual hygiene management and this is a major reason to interrupt schooling. Based on the 2007 national census conducted by the Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia, this woreda has a total population of 117,954, an increase of 26.42% over the 1994 census, of whom 56,415 are men and 61,539 women; 7,553 or 6.40% are urban inhabitants. With an area of 1,892.69 square kilometers, Hawzen has a population density of 62.32, which is greater than the Zone average of 56.93 persons per square kilometer. A total of 25,067 households were counted in this woreda, resulting in an average of 4.71 persons to a household, and 24,105 housing units. The majority of the inhabitants said they practiced Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, with 99.4% reporting that as their religion. The 1994 national census reported a total population for this woreda of 93,300 of whom 45,704 were men and 47,596 were women; 3,835 or 4.11% of its population were urban dwellers. The largest ethnic group reported in Hawzen was the Tigrayan. Tigrinya is spoken as a first language by 99.72%. The majority of the inhabitants practiced Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, with 99.45% reporting that as their religion. Concerning education, 11.38% of the population were considered literate, which is greater than the Zone average of 9.01%; 11.71% of children aged 7–12 were in primary school; a negligible number of the children aged 13–14 were in junior secondary school, as well as the inhabitants aged 15–18 in senior secondary school. Concerning sanitary conditions, about 76% of the urban houses and 18% of all houses had access to safe drinking water at the time of the census; about 7% of the urban and about 3.5% of the total had toilet facilities.
Agriculture
A sample enumeration performed by the CSA in 2001 interviewed 21,582 farmers in this woreda, who held an average of 0.77 hectares of land. Of the 16,580 hectares of private land surveyed, 77.92% was under cultivation, 12.64% pasture, 5.1% fallow, 0.78% in woodland, and 4.03% was devoted to other uses. For the land under cultivation in this woreda, 62% was planted in cereals, 13.2% in pulses, 0.96% in oilseeds, and 7 hectares in vegetables. The total area planted in fruit trees was 372 hectares, while 13 were planted in gesho. 74.00% of the farmers both raised crops and livestock, while 22.35% only grew crops and 3.65% only raised livestock. Land tenure in this woreda is distributed amongst 95.49% owning their land, 3.37% renting, and 1.02% holding their land under other forms of tenure.
