In Ethiopia, the extent of genetic diversity among sorghum germplasmrncollections from drought prone areas has not been well studied. To determinernthe extent of genetic diversity among different sorghum genotypes grown inrnmajor moisture stressed areas of Ethiopia, a total of 495 sorghum accessionsrnwere evaluated at two representative moisture stress areas. Thirteen quantitative and sixrnqualitative traits were used in this study. For the quantitative traits, univariate, bivariaternand multivariate statistical methods were applied to analyse the genetic diversity.rnMoreover, the phenotypic diversity between the accessions and regions of origin werernestimated based on the qualitative traits using Shannon-Weaver diversity index (H ï‚¢ ).rnAnalysis of variance revealed significant difference among the accessions for allrnquantitative traits. Based on their field performance in moisture stress areas, 95 potentialrndrought tolerant sorghum accessions were identified for further evaluation. Moreover,rncluster analysis grouped the test accessions into eight clusters with different geneticrndistance between each cluster. Maximum genetic distances were obtained betweenrnclusters C7 & C8, C4 & C8, and C6 & C7 with D2 190.78, 160.95 and 147.98, respectively.rnIn principal component analysis, the first four principal components explained 62.09%rnof the total variation, indicating existence of high genetic diversity among the accessions.rnFurthermore, all the qualitative characters showed high diversity in their distribution asrnwell as in the amount of variation. The overall average phenotypic diversity (Hï‚¢) amongrnaccessions was 0.82, varying from 0.66 for inflorescence exertion to 0.93 for grain color.rnThe partitioning of the phenotypic diversity into within and between regions of originsrnindicated that 87 % of the total variation was within regions of origin, while only 13%rnwas found between regions of origin. Therefore, this study confirms the existence ofrnvery high genetic diversity in sorghum germplasm accessions grown in the droughtrnprone areas of Ethiopia, providing a great opportunity to isolate a number of promisingrnparents with good traits related to drought tolerance, for crossing to develop droughtrntolerant/resistant sorghum varieties.rnKey words: Sorghum, Genetic diversity, Drought, Ethiopia, Quantitativerntraits, Qualitative traits