Part of the Debubawi Zone, Alamata is bordered on the south and west by the Amhara Region, on the northwest by Ofla, and on the northeast by Raya Azebo.

[2] The zonal water, mining and energy department announced 15 August 2009 that 84 of the 100 wells planned in Alamata and Raya Azebo woredas have been completed at a cost of 40 million Birr.

[3] The population comprises several ethnic groups: (1) Tigrayans, occupying the major part of the woreda, (2) Oromo form an ancient population group in the Raya graben that has been partly assimilated to the surrounding Amhara – the language is not anymore used on a daily basis; they live in dispersed villages across the wider area between Alamata, Mohoni and Chercher, (3) Afar share settlements on the mountains east of Raya, (4), generally living south of the Gobu River.

In recent years they have started dry season irrigation agriculture, stimulated by government-established groundwater pumps and by mimicking commercial farms that have been attracted.

The nearby Afar pastoralists practice transhumance, during drought periods, to remote areas, especially to the escarpment and highlands of Region Amhara.

Movements to the Tigray uplands allow the Afar pastoralists to herd their livestock on denser vegetation as well as on standing stubble of croplands.

[6] A sample enumeration performed by the CSA in 2001 interviewed 18,422 farmers in this woreda, who held an average of 0.84 hectares of land.

[7] Parthenium hysterophorus (or Congress weed) is reported to be an increasing threat to cereal production in Alamata, as well as in the adjacent woreda of Kobo in Amhara Region.