The city is a political and administrative center of the Wolaita Zone and South Ethiopia Regional State.

The hospital provides a full range of medical, and surgical services, including Orthopedic and General, Maternity, and Pediatrics.

Wolaita Sodo University Teaching Referral Hospital is also located in this town and it serves around two million people.

[3] The administrator of Sodo Zuria woreda and one-time student activist, Melaku Gebre Egziahber, was arrested in 1975 for encouraging peasants and the urban poor to rise up against "exploiters" in the town.

Special police units were brought in to suppress the demonstrations, and killed as many as 10 people, injured hundreds and arrested up to 1,000 others.

The majority of the inhabitants were Ethiopian orthodox tewahido, with 54.60% of the population reporting that belief, 38.43% practiced Protestant or pintay, 4.76% were Muslim, and 1.28% were Catholic.

WSU offers courses and programs leading to officially recognized higher education degrees in several areas of study.

[9] According to the SNNPR's Bureau of Finance and Economic Development, as of 2003[update] Wolaitta Dicha S.C. is an Ethiopian football club based in Sodo.

The club was established in 2020 and it was founded by Debrework Tesfaye and his colleagues teaching in Wolaita Sodo University department of Sport Science.

Located in the tropics at high altitude, Sodo possesses a well-moderated Subtropical highland climate (Koppen Cwb), with a pronounced pattern of wet summers and dry winters.