It is named after its chief town Chilga (also known as Ayikel), an important stopping point on the historic Gondar-Sudan trade route.

A survey of the land in this woreda shows that 21.7% is arable or cultivable, 1.9% pasture, 22.3% forest or shrubland, and the remaining 54.1% is considered degraded or other.

One notable landmark in this woreda is the archeological site at Chilga Kernet, which was investigated in 2002 as part of the Blue Nile Basin Survey Project.

The surface of the site was reported to be "littered with several thousand hand axes and other heavily weathered basalt implements".

A preliminary survey led the investigators to speculate that much of the hill is underlain by a layer of Acheulean artifacts of about 2 hectares in size.

[7] A sample enumeration performed by the CSA in 2001 interviewed 33,624 farmers in this woreda, who held an average of 0.61 hectares of land.