The Provisional Administration of Dire Dawa covers a rich and diverse area located at the interface between the arid lowlands and the fertile Harrarghe Highlands in Eastern Ethiopia. In the past, the place had been a natural cultural and ecological meeting place that was both a magnet and a potential source of contestation for different subsistence groups through out its existence.

Since its very establishment in 1902, Dire Dawa, the main urban center in the administration, seems to have taken over seriously its engrained responsibility of attracting peoples from different cultures to come, and co-exist together peacefully: a feature or an aspect that has become synonymous Dire Dawa.

At present the Provisional Administration of Dire Dawa has a total land area of 1945 km2, of which 32 km2, accounts for the size the urban area, while the remaining 1790 km2, covers the rural section of the administration.
The topography of the area consists of plains, valleys, and mountains whose altitudes range from 960 meters above sea level to 2,500 meter. Basically it has a warm, dry, and relatively high temperature through out the year with minor seasonal variations. The mean annual temperature is about 24.8o/c, while its average maximum and minimum temperatures are 31.4o/C and 18.2o/C respectively.
The administration has at present an estimated population size of 369,674, of which 185,266 are male, and 184,408 are female. About
70% of the population resides in urban areas, while the remaining 30 % lives in the rural areas. Age-wise, the size of the population between the ages of 1-14 is 36.8%, and of those that are between the ages 15-64 is 60.7%, while the size of those above 65 is 2.5% of the total population of the administration.