Nigeria's second city was a Sahel trade capital
Kano, capital of Kano State, holds more than four million people across 449 square kilometres of Sudanian savanna. For centuries it was a Hausa kingdom and a hinge of trans-Saharan commerce, still nicknamed the region's centre of commerce after Islam arrived by the eleventh century.
Northern Nigeria's second-largest city after Lagos sits south of the Sahel near the meeting of the Kano and Challawa rivers, which form the Hadejia flowing toward Lake Chad. Over four million residents occupy about 449 square kilometres. Hausa and Fulani dominate, yet the city was long cosmopolitan—Arab, Tuareg, and Kanuri communities—and Hausa remains a regional lingua franca for more than seventy million speakers. Islam arrived by the eleventh century or earlier via desert trade routes, enriching a commercial nerve centre still branded as the centre of commerce. The Dabo dynasty has ruled as emirs since the nineteenth century under today's Kano Emirate Council.
Chronicle tradition roots the settlement at Dala Hill. A seventh-century hunting and iron-working community (Nok-linked) occupied the residual hill; the Kano Chronicle names warrior-priest Barbushe and the deity Tsumburbura among Maguzawa first settlers. Bagauda, grandson of the Bayajidda legend, is cast as first king from 999 to 1063. His grandson Gijimasu (1095–1134) began the city walls at Dala's foot; Tsaraki (1136–1194) finished them. In the twelfth century Ali Yaji renounced the old cult, converted to Islam, and proclaimed a sultanate. Muhammad Rumfa (1463–1499) expanded the Gidan Rumfa palace, built Kurmi market and walls, invited scholars, and—under Songhai pressure—married Askiyah's daughter Auwa, later the first female Madaki. Leo Africanus praised wealthy merchants, skilled craftsmen, cavalry, and abundant rice, corn, cotton, and citrus.
Sokoto's jihad under Usman dan Fodio toppled the last sultan in 1805; Kano became the caliphate's largest, richest emirate. Cloth, dye, and leather reached Morocco and Europe; cotton went to Tripoli, Lake Chad, and Timbuktu. Heinrich Barth in 1851 described ten-mile clay walls thirty feet high, thirty thousand people, and a labyrinthine market he called central Africa's greatest emporium. Britain took the fort after the March 1903 Battle of Kano and briefly made the city Northern Nigeria's administrative hub. Groundnut pyramids later marked the skyline; by 1922 trader Alhassan Dantata was the emirate's richest businessman. Landmarks still include Gidan Makama Museum, Gidan Rumfa, Dala Hill, Kurmi Market, the Great Mosque, surviving Ancient City Walls and gates, and the Kofar Mata dye pits.
Source: Kano (city)
