Tigray Region
Tigray Region (, "kilil Tigrāy;" Official name: , "Bəh̩erawi Kəllelawi Mängəśti Təgray", "Tigray National Regional State") is the northernmost of the nine regions ("kililat") of Ethiopia. Tigray is the homeland of the Tigrayan, Irob and Kunama peoples. Tigray is also known as Region 1 according to the federal constitution. Its capital and largest city is Mekelle. Tigray is the 6th largest by area, the 5th most populous, and the 5th most densely populated of the 9 Regional States.
Tigray Province
The spiritual core of Tigray was and is Aksum. Even if being formally under the rulership of the central province (Tigray proper), the town enjoyed a special status, as a free city with its own self-government. Its administrators were the , a governor appointed by the Ethiopian ruler, and the , the mayor elected by the male members of the seven "Aksumite clans" of Aksum, , , , , , , . These encompassed the entire whole indigenous city population, who was not to pay any taxes. The represented the sphere of the Ethiopian state and often descended from the local leading families; if he was a layman, he appointed an (speaker of the ) for the administration of church issues. Aksum as the guardian of the Tables of the Law (, also identified as ; Ark of Covenant) was regarded as "a church". On this ground its priests did not allow "atse" Yohannes IV to permanently establish his royal there, who therefore used Mekelle as his capital. The city population managed to defend their traditional self-government - with the being independent from the - even throughout the 20th century politics of centralization by "atse" Haile Selassie I.