Asella is a city in central Ethiopia. Located in the Arsi Zone of the Oromia Region about 175 kilometers from Addis Ababa, this city has a latitude and longitude of , with an elevation of 2430 meters. Asella hosts an airport (IATA code ALK). Asella was the capital of Arsi Province until that province was demoted to a Zone of Oromia with the adoption of the 1995 Constitution. It retains some administrative functions as the seat of the present Arsi Zone.

Based on figures from the Central Statistical Agency in 2005, this town has an estimated total population of 84,645, of whom 40,552 were males and 44,093 were females. The 1994 national census reported this town had a total population of 47,391 of whom 21,993 were males and 25,398 were females. This town is the largest of three in Tiyo woreda.

History

The area around Asella was occupied by Shewan troops in 1882, as part of a brutal war of conquest against the Arsi Oromo. The town itself got its start before the Second Italian-Abyssinian War. The Italian occupiers wanted to make Asela into a provincial capital, but they were unable to build more than one two-story building and some warehouses of masonry. The 6th brigade and two companies of the 5th brigade of the King's African Rifles captured Asella on 10 April 1941, after pursuing General De Simone south from Dire Dawa and forcing their way past the Awash River and a dug-in Italian position. Brigade headquarters were afterwards set up in the town.

In 1946, a Swedish Mission laid the foundations for a hospital and a school in Asella, which was ordered closed in 1966 when a government hospital was built. The town was subjected to a serious epidemic of dysentery during 1953, and a locust invasion in April 1961. In 1957 Asella was the southern end of the national telephone network, and by 1960 Asella had one of the ten municipal slaughter houses in Ethiopia; further, that year a branch of the Ethiopian Electric Light and Power Authority had begun operation in the town.

Asella has been the home of many Ethiopian track athletes, including Haile Gebrselassie, Kenenisa Bekele, Tirunesh Dibaba, and Derartu Tulu.

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