Located in the Gedeo Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' Region, this town has an elevation between 1880 and 1919 meters above sea level.
Until the completion in the early 1970s of the tarmac road to the Kenya border, Dilla had been located at the southern end of the all-weather road from Addis Ababa and thus became the major transfer and marketing point for coffee grown farther south, particularly of the much-prized Yirga Cheffe varietal (see coffee varietals).