Sodo

In the early 1930s, Sodo was described as the only locality in Wolaita district deserving to be called a town. It had a Saturday market, a telephone line to the capital, and a weekly mail courier. Italian ground troops captured Sodo on 27 January 1937; it was there that two Italian generals with their divisions – Liberati with his 25th Division, and Bacarri with his 101st Division – surrendered on 22 May 1941, after a minimum of resistance. The British also captured the remnants of the 21st Division, who had escaped around the north end of Lake Abijatta. The loot included more than 4,000 officers and men, 6 medium tanks, 4 light tanks, 100 machine guns, ammunition and supplies. By 1958 Sodo was one of 27 places in Ethiopia ranked as First Class Township. A branch of the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia was established between 1965 and 1968. …

Located in the tropics at high altitude, Sodo possesses a well-moderated Subtropical highland climate (Koppen Cwb), with a pronounced pattern of wet summers and dry winters. Despite being located in the Northern Hemisphere, Sodo is actually cooler in the "summer" than the "winter" due to much higher rainfall in the high-sun season, a phenomenon common to Sodo's region.

Sodo is served by an airport. A 166-kilometre (103 mi) road connecting Sodo with Chida, whose construction had started in 1994, was completed by early 1999. Featuring an 80-metre (260 ft) Bailey bridge across the Omo river and five other bridges, this road cost 255 million Birr, and reduced the distance between Awassa and Mizan Teferi to 400 kilometres (250 mi). According to the SNNPR's Bureau of Finance and Economic Development, as of 2003

Based on the 2007 Census conducted by the CSA, this city has a total population of 76,050, of whom 40,140 are men and 35,910 women. The majority of the inhabitants were Ethiopian orthodox tewahido, with 54.60% of the population reporting that belief, 38.43% practiced Protestant or pintay, 4.76% were Muslim, and 1.28% were Catholic. The 1994 national census reported this city had a total population of 36,287 of whom 18,863 were men and 17,424 were women. In 2024, the city’s population exceeded 512,498, and its area expanded to 344 km².