Metu

Metu is a town in the Illubabor (Ilu Aba Bora) Zone of Oromia in south-western Ethiopia, sitting along the Sor River at an elevation of about 1,605 m. It served as the capital of the former Illubabor Province from 1978 until Ethiopia's 1995 constitution reorganized the country's administrative structure. Metu has long been a hub of the coffee trade — foreign buyers were resident in the town as early as the 1930s to purchase crops from local farmers, and in that era it functioned as the last major stop before Gore, serving mule caravans and later the Ethiopian Transport Motor Company. The wider Illubabor zone remains one of Ethiopia's significant coffee-producing regions, and Metu continues to serve as its principal market and administrative town.