Nekemte, also spelled as Neqemte (Oromo: Naqamtee, Amharic: ነቀምት), is a market city and separate woreda in western Ethiopia.

Located in the East Welega Zone of the Oromia Region, Nekemte has a latitude and longitude of 9°5′N 36°33′E / 9.083°N 36.550°E / 9.083; 36.550 and an elevation of 2,088 meters.

[3] Nekemte like most of the towns of the Welega Province grew as a result of the rise of agricultural surplus after the Oromo became permanently settled in the early in the late 16th-century.

The Russian explorer Alexander Bulatovich visited Nekemte 13 March 1897; in memoirs he describes its marketplace as "a very lively place and presents a motley mixture of languages, dress, and peoples", and carefully described the paintings in the city's newly constructed Ethiopian Orthodox church.

Construction on a hospital began in 1927, and was completed in 1932 with Swedish funds as well as contributions from Ras Tafari (who later became Emperor Haile Selassie).

[9] The British explorer Dunlop, who spent four days of the same year in that city, noted that its central location on the main trade route between Addis Ababa and the Anglo-Sudan led to it having "developed enormously during the preceding few years, as the new school, warehouses, stores, and hospital testified".

Dejazmach Habte Maryam, governor of Welega, accepted the Italians and received Colonel A. Marone who arrived by air on 14 October and the troops of Colonel Malta who reached the city on 24 October, after having marched by foot and mule for twelve days from Addis Alem, which weakened Ras Imru Haile Selassie's attempts as Prince Regent to establish a center of resistance at Gore.

After his successful return to Ethiopia, on 20 May 1941 Emperor Haile Selassie visited Welega where fighting still continued and where Kebede Tesemma was in charge of the Arbegnoch.

[3] A public address system was installed in the central square in Nekemte (and in ten other towns) in 1955, used for receiving transmission from Radio Addis Ababa and re-broadcasting it.

The Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front captured Nekemte on 2 April 1991, as part of Operation Freedom and Equality (Duula Bilisummaa fi Walqixxummaa).

[14] From about 2007 to 2017, a nearby meteorological station showed an average annual temperature that, though lower than that from 1990, was still higher than 1970, when rigorous recordkeeping began there, as well as greater precipitation than that seen in the 1980s.