Available evidellce show that 1I0t ollly is child mortality ill Ethiopia amollg the highest ill the world,rnthere are also cOllsiderable differences ill chalices of survival a11l0llg children of differellt populatioll groups.rnNevertheless, the different aspects of child mortality are still far from sufficielltly documellted. In an effortrnto fill some of the gaps ill this respec4 this study sought firs4 to detennille levels alld trends of childrnmortality usillg a 5 percellt sample of womell from the 1984 census data for Shewa region. Because of itsrncultural alld climatic diversity,Shewa provides all ideal settingfor such all undertakillg. Secolld, attempt wasrnalso made to filld out the differences in child survival in a uni- alld bivariate study followed by arnmultivariate analysis of the detem.illants of child mortality.rnUsing the Trussell procedure, illfant mortality rate (IMR) is estimated as high as 101 deaths perrn1000 live births for Shewa region. The correspolldillg child (,lJ,) and ullder five mortality (,Q,) are 73 andrn167 respectively. This means that one out of every six children in the region failS to reach his/her fifthrnbirthday. Furthermore, no improvement in child mortality in the recent past is detected- In the 1970s itrnremained COllstallt fluctuating around 160 deaths per 1000 live births for both sexes.rnWhen attelltion is focussed all the differellces in child mortality among different populationrnsubgroups, the expected strong negative relationship between child mortality alld education of mother isrnevidellt. aile revealing aspect of this study is the prevalence of strong regional difference in child mortalityrnin Shewa region. Thus, the illcidellce of child death is much more frequent ill the three south em Awrajasrnof Haikoch-Butajiru, Kembata-Hadiya and Chebo-Gurage than in the central Awrajas of Menageshu, Selalernalld Tegulet-Bulga. Moreover, child survival advantages of the Amara ethllic group over that of the Gurage,rnChristialls over Moslems alld the currently married women over other marriage categories are observedIt emerged from the study that acquirillg more pertillellt data, expalldillg educatiollal opportunityrnfor womell, redressillg the regiollal imbalance ill child mortality will go a IOllg way ill reducillg childrnmortality ill this country