Herbal plant extracts are used in a variety of commercial sectors, including thernpharmaceutical, food, and chemical industries, have received renewed attention in recentrndecades. The Ethiopian highlands have a suitable environment for the cultivation of essentialrnoil herbs. Among essential oil source plants, lemongrass (Cymbopogon citratus) is one of thernmost widely cultivated in the country, which is readily available at the Wondogenetrnagricultural research center. This study mainly covers the extraction, optimization, andrncharacterization of lemongrass essential oil. The extraction process was done by steamrndistillation with concedrations of yield and quality of products. Three selected factors: rawrnmaterial particle size, weight of raw per batch and extraction time with constant temperaturernand steam supply were employed. The optimized result of the extraction process was a rawrnmaterial particle size of 10cm, a raw material mass per batch of 1kg, an extraction time of 62rnmin, yield of 0.755% and the result was verified. The three lemongrass varieties, Wg lomisarrnjava, Wg lomisra UA, and Wg lomisar (I), were used in the experiment. Among these, WgrnLomisar (I) was the best variety in terms of yield and quality. Physico-chemicalrncharacterization results: specific gravity of 0.907, refractive index of 1.4824, kinematicrnviscosity of 3.1643Î¼, functional group identification by FT-IR, and compositional analysisrnwas done by gas chromatography and mass spectroscopic (GC-MS) methods. Among thernmajor components of the GC-MS analysis were Citral (28.4227%), Beta.-Myrcenern(11.6291%), Heptadecane, 9-octyl (7.7451%), and Docosanoic acid, methyl and esterrn(5.701%) respectively. These physico-chemical result attributes indicate that the productrnwould have a significant role in cosmetic and perfumery activities.