Lasta (Amharic: ላስታ lāstā) is a historic province in northern Ethiopia located in the Amhara Region. It is the province in which Lalibela is situated, the former capital of Ethiopia during the Zagwe dynasty and home to 11 medieval rock-hewn churches. Its original name in the Middle Ages was Bewegna now known as Bugna.
According to G.W.B. Huntingford, Lasta is first mentioned in the fourteenth century, although it obviously had been inhabited long before that.[1] In the 18th century the CzechFranciscanRemedius Prutky listed Lasta as one of the 22 provinces of Ethiopia still subject to the Emperor, but singled Lasta out as one of the six he considered "large and truly deserving of the name of kingdom."[2] Its neighbor to the west was Begemder, and to the north, Wag.
^G.W.B. Huntingford, The historical geography of Ethiopia from the first century AD to 1704, (Oxford University Press: 1989), p. 100
^J.H. Arrowsmith-Brown (trans.), Prutky's Travels in Ethiopia and other Countries with notes by Richard Pankhurst (London: Hakluyt Society, 1991), p. 131
