It is located in the Soddo woreda, in the Gurage Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Region south of Addis Ababa. It is best known for its archaeological site its large stone pillars, many of which bear some form of decoration. The archeological site was designated a World Heritage Site in 1980, due to the unique nature of these monolithic monuments.

Tiya is among the most important of the roughly 160 archaeological sites discovered so far in the Soddo region, south of Addis Ababa. The site contains 36 monuments, including 32 carved stelae covered with symbols, most of which are difficult to decipher. They are the remains of an ancient Ethiopian culture whose age has not yet been precisely determined. Tiya is an archaeological site in central Ethiopia.