The Amhara (Amharic: አማራ^?, Ge'ez: አምሐራ) are an ethnic group (but see below) inhabiting the central highlands of Ethiopia. Numbering about 19.8 million people, they comprise 26% of the country's population according to the 2007 national census. They speak Amharic, an Afro-Asiatic tongue, which is the working language of the federal authorities of Ethiopia.

The derivation of the name "Amhara" is debated; according to some it comes from the word amari, meaning "pleasing, agreeable, beautiful and gracious" (also mehare, "gracious", containing the same m-h-r root as the verb to learn), while some Ethiopian historians such as Getachew Mekonnen Hasen say it is an ethnic name connected with Himyarites. Still others say that it derives from Ge'ez, meaning "free people" (i.e. from Ge'ez ዓም "ʿam" meaning "people," and ሓራ "h.ara", meaning "free" or "soldier"), though others, such as Donald Levine, have dismissed this as a folk etymology. Ultimately, however, the name for the language and ethnic group came from the medieval province of Amhara, located in central Ethiopia in modern Amhara Region and the pre-1995 province of Wollo.

Meles Zenawi Asres (Ge'ez: መለስ ዜናዊ አስረስ Mäläs Zenawi Äsräs; born 8 May 1955) has been the Prime Minister of Ethiopia since 1995. He was President of Ethiopia from 1991 to 1995. Since 1985, he has been chairman of the Tigrayan Peoples' Liberation Front (TPLF), and he is head of the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF).

Meles was born in Adwa, Tigray in Northern Ethiopia, to an Ethiopian father from Adwa, Ethiopia, and a mother from Adi Quala, Eritrea. He graduated from the General Wingate high school in Addis Ababa, then studied medicine at Addis Ababa University (at the time known as Haile Selassie University) for two years before interrupting his studies in 1975 to join the TPLF. While a member of the TPLF, he founded the Marxist-Leninist League of Tigray. His first name at birth was "Legesse" (thus Legesse Zenawi, Ge'ez: ለገሰ ዜናዊ legesse zēnāwī) but he is better known by his nom de guerre Meles. He later changed his first name to "Meles" in honor of a University student and a revolutionary radical who was executed by the previous government in 1975.