Hayq, Ethiopia

Hayq
Hayq, Ethiopia
Hayq Location in Ethiopia
Coordinates: 11°18′N 39°41′E / 11.300°N 39.683°E / 11.300; 39.683Coordinates: 11°18′N 39°41′E / 11.300°N 39.683°E / 11.300; 39.683
Country	Ethiopia
Region	Amhara
Zone	Debub Wollo
Elevation	2,030 m (6,660 ft)
Population (2005)
• Total	14,319 (est)
Time zone	EAT (UTC+3)
Area code(s)	None

Hayq (or Haik) is a town in northern Ethiopia. It is named after Lake Hayq, which lies two kilometers east of the city and is the home of Istifanos Monastery, an important landmark in Ethiopian Church history. Located 28 kilometers north of Dessie in the Tehuledere woreda of the Debub Wollo Zone of the Amhara Region, the town has a latitude and longitude of 11°18′N 39°41′E / 11.300°N 39.683°E / 11.300; 39.683 and an elevation of 2030 meters above sea level.

Telephone service reached the town of Hayq at some point between 1954 and 1967. Notable landmarks include the churches Hayq Timhirt and Hayq Yohannis. Near the town is the church of Hayq Tekle Haymanot, founded according to tradition in 862 by Saint Kalae Salama during the reign of king Dil Na'od.

In the 1930s, the Italian occupiers dedicated a graveyard near Hayq for the bodies of dead soldiers from the Blackshirt 3 Gennaio Division. During the mid-1980s, local educational services was augmented by the Swedish Wello Environment Education Project, which ran a secondary school. Hayq was formerly the capital of the Amba Sel woreda or district in Wollo.