The shores and islands of Lake Zway are the home of the Zay people.

It is spoken by about 4,880 members of the Zay people on the islands and shores of Lake Zway in southern Ethiopia.

The Zay people cultivate maize, sorghum, finger millet, teff, pepper and barley, and raise cattle, goats, sheep, donkeys and chicken.

Local tradition suggests that the Zay people comprise three streams of people that populated the islands of Lake Ziway between the early 14th and the mid-17th centuries.

The Zay people generally have limited access to modern health care and primarily rely on medicinal plants, although (as elsewhere in the country) environmental and cultural factors threaten both medicinal plants and traditional medical knowledge.