Konso Cultural Landscape: Visitor and Heritage Guide

The Konso Cultural Landscape lies in the Konso zone of the South Ethiopia region, and carries no FCDO regional restriction. Together with Harar it is one of the two parts of this cluster currently open, and it is the one least like anything else on the list.

A landscape that is the monument

UNESCO describes an arid property of stone walled terraces and fortified settlements in the Konso highlands. Inscribed in 2011 under criteria three and five.

It calls the place a spectacular example of a living cultural tradition stretching back 21 generations, which it glosses as more than 400 years, adapted to a dry and hostile environment, and says the landscape demonstrates the shared values, social cohesion and engineering knowledge of its communities.

The terracing is the achievement. Generations of dry stone walling turned a hard, eroding hillside into farmland and kept it farmable, and it was done without cement, machinery or an outside authority directing it. It is engineering of a high order that has never been described that way often enough.

Marking time in stone

UNESCO records that stone steles in the towns express a complex system of marking the passing of generations of leaders. It is a written record kept in a medium that does not need paper, and it is why the twenty-one generations can be counted rather than estimated.