Niger
Capital: Niamey · West Africa
Saharan-Sahelian crossroads of Tuareg confederations, Hausa city-states, Songhai-Zarma riverlands and the Wodaabe's famous Gerewol festival.
Ethnic communities
- HausaCity-state traditions (Zinder/Damagaram); trade and craft guilds
- Zarma-SonghaiNiger River farmers, heirs of Songhai
- TuaregAïr and Azawagh confederations; cross-of-Agadez silverwork
- Wodaabe (Fulbe)Nomads famed for the Gerewol male beauty ritual
More communities of Niger
- Zarma — Niamey-region farmers of Songhai speech
- Songhai — River-bend heirs of Gao's empire
- Tuareg (Kel Aïr, Kel Gres) — Aïr confederations of the azalai salt runs
- Wodaabe Fulbe — Gerewol festival nomads of the Azawagh
- Settled Fulbe — Agro-pastoral communities across the south
- Kanuri (Beri Beri) — Bornu's western heirs around Zinder
- Toubou (Teda & Daza) — Kawar and Ténéré desert masters
- Diffa Arabs — Mahamid camel herders of the far east
- Gourmantché — Southwestern farmers over the Burkina line
- Buduma (Yedina) — Lake Chad islanders of papyrus boats
- Manga Kanuri — Eastern sands' millet and natron folk
- Kurtey & Wogo — River-island rice growers of Songhai speech
- Dendi — Southern river traders toward Benin
- Azna (Arna) — Hausa-speaking keepers of pre-Islamic bori shrines
Languages
Major languages: Hausa, Zarma-Songhai, Tamashek, Fulfulde, Kanuri, French
Language families: Afro-Asiatic (Chadic, Berber); Nilo-Saharan
Historical kingdoms & states
- • Songhai Empire
- • Sultanate of Aïr (Agadez)
- • Damagaram (Zinder)
- • Dosso kingdom
Heritage sites
- • Historic centre of Agadez
- • Aïr and Ténéré Reserves
Cultural highlights
Deep-dive community profiles
Amazigh (Berber)
The indigenous peoples of North Africa — 'Imazighen', the free people — whose Tifinagh script, mountain and desert civilizations, and millennia of continuous culture long predate the Arab arrival, stretching from the Canary Islands to the Siwa oasis.
Open deep profile →Fulani (Fulbe)
The great pastoral nation of the Sahel — some 40 million people scattered from Senegal to Sudan, keepers of the pulaaku ethical code, founders of Islamic reform states, and among them the Wodaabe, whose Gerewol beauty festival is world-famous.
Open deep profile →Hausa
West Africa's greatest urban trading civilization — the walled city-states of Kano, Katsina and Zaria, a lingua franca spoken by over 80 million, centuries of Islamic scholarship, and the spectacular horsemanship of the Durbar.
Open deep profile →Kanuri
The imperial people of the Lake Chad basin — heirs of Kanem-Bornu, a Muslim state that lasted a thousand years, whose sultans corresponded with Istanbul and whose scholars, saddled cavalry and desert trade routes linked the Sahara to the savanna.
Open deep profile →Songhai
Heirs of West Africa's largest empire — the Niger-bend civilization of Gao, Timbuktu and the askias, whose farmers, fishers and traders still line the great river from Mali through Niger.
Open deep profile →Tuareg (Kel Tamasheq)
The veiled lords of the central Sahara — matrilineal confederations who ran the desert's caravans for a millennium, write in ancient Tifinagh, and whose women own the tents, the poetry and the one-string imzad that carries the nomad soul.
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