In Ethiopia and many Sub-Saharan Africa countries food insecurity is a contemporary issue mainly caused by climate change and variability, land degradation, poor production technologies and poor governance at grass root level. Urban areas are faced with the problem of increasing population and consequently inadequate supply of food items. Many urban households and individuals in Ethiopia in general and the study in particular merely eat for Survival. This study was therefore designed to assess the status and determinants of food security and coping strategies among urban households in Gondar towns of the Amhara National Regional States. For this study questionnaire survey, key informants interview and focus group discussions and non- participant observation were employed to collect the primary data. A stratified random sampling method was employed to select the final sampling units. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used for data analysis and the later included descriptive statistics and regression modeling. The survey results showed that the majority (66.7%) of the sampled households experienced food insecurity. Several factors were identified for the deteriorating situation of urban food security in the study area. These are educational level, employment status, high dependency ratio, income, expenditure, saving, remittances, house access, health status, asset ownership and poor social services. On the other hand, households respond to the problems caused by transitory and chronic food insecurity through relaying on less expensive foods, reducing number of meals per day, going to never eat per a day, food aid, borrowing money from relatives, remittances and seasonal migration etc. while the commonly used adaptive strategies include increasing working hours and reducing social service. To improve food security situation in the study area, the following action should be taken. The household head and members of the household should engage in different income generating activities, increase educational participation, avoid extravagance and remittance should be properly used for means of living, coping mechanism and to escape from food insecurity; the government of Ethiopia should incorporate different research outputs to design programs for food insecurity intervention; like, creating employment opportunities, widening educational access, provide faire distribution of social services and give priority for vernerable group of household heads are also crucial activities.