1.
Niger
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Niger, officially the Republic of Niger, is a landlocked country in Western Africa, named after the Niger River. Niger is bordered by Libya to the northeast, Chad to the east, Nigeria and Benin to the south, Burkina Faso and Mali to the west, and Algeria to the northwest. Niger covers a area of almost 1,270,000 km2, making it the largest country in West Africa. The countrys predominantly Islamic population of about 19 million is mostly clustered in the far south, the capital city is Niamey, located in the far-southwest corner of Niger. Niger is a country, and is consistently one of the lowest-ranked in the United Nations Human Development Index. Much of the portions of the country are threatened by periodic drought. The economy is concentrated around subsistence and some export agriculture clustered in the fertile south. Nigerien society reflects a diversity drawn from the long independent histories of its ethnic groups and regions. Historically, what is now Niger has been on the fringes of large states. Since independence, Nigeriens have lived under five constitutions and three periods of military rule, following a military coup in 2010, Niger has become a democratic, multi-party state. A majority live in areas, and have little access to advanced education. Early human settlement in Niger is evidenced by archaeological remains. In prehistoric times, the climate of the Sahara was wet and provided favorable conditions for agriculture, in 2005–06, a graveyard in the Tenere desert was discovered by Paul Sereno, a paleontologist from the University of Chicago. His team discovered 5, 000-year-old remains of a woman and two children in the Tenere Desert, the evidence along with remains of animals that do not typically live in desert are among the strongest evidence of the green Sahara in Niger. It is believed that progressive desertification around 5000 BCE pushed sedentary populations to the south and south-east. By at least the 5th century BCE, Niger became an area of trade, led by the Berber tribes from the north. This trade has made Agadez a pivotal place of the trans-Saharan trade and this mobility, which would continue in waves for several centuries, was accompanied with further migration to the south and interbreeding between southern black and northern white populations. It was also aided by the introduction of Islam to the region at the end of the 7th century, several empires and kingdoms also flourished during this era up to the beginning of colonization in Africa
2.
Niger River
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The Niger River is the principal river of western Africa, extending about 4,180 km. Its drainage basin is 2,117,700 km2 in area and its source is in the Guinea Highlands in southeastern Guinea. The Niger is the third-longest river in Africa, exceeded only by the Nile and its main tributary is the Benue River. The Scottish explorer Mungo Park was the first Westerner known to have travelled to the portion of the Niger River. The earliest use of the name Niger for the river is by Leo Africanus in his Della descrittione dell’Africa et delle cose notabili che iui sono published in Italian in 1550, the name may come from Berber phrase ger-n-ger meaning river of rivers. As Timbuktu was the end of the principal Trans-Saharan trade route to the western Mediterranean. When European colonial powers began to send ships along the West coast of Africa in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Niger Delta, pouring into the Atlantic through mangrove swamps and thousands of distributaries along more than 160 kilometres, was thought to be no more than coastal wetlands. The Niger River is a clear river, carrying only a tenth as much sediment as the Nile because the Nigers headwaters lie in ancient rocks that provide little silt. Like the Nile, the Niger floods yearly, this begins in September, peaks in November, an unusual feature of the river is the Inner Niger Delta, which forms where its gradient suddenly decreases. The result is a region of braided streams, marshes, and lakes the size of Belgium, the river loses nearly two-thirds of its potential flow in the Inner Delta between Ségou and Timbuktu to seepage and evaporation. All the water from the Bani River, which flows into the Delta at Mopti, the average loss is estimated at 31 km3/year, but varies considerably between years. The river is joined by various tributaries, but also loses more water to evaporation. The quantity of water entering Nigeria measured in Yola was estimated at 25 km3/year before the 1980s, the most important tributary of the Niger in Nigeria is the Benue River which merges with the river at Lokoja in Nigeria. The Niger takes one of the most unusual routes of any major river and this strange geography apparently came about because the Niger River is two ancient rivers joined together. Over time upstream erosion by the lower Niger resulted in capture of the upper Niger by the lower Niger. The northern part of the river, known as the Niger bend, is an important area because it is the major river and this made it the focal point of trade across the western Sahara, and the centre of the Sahelian kingdoms of Mali and Gao. The surrounding Niger River Basin is one of the distinct physiographic sections of the Sudan province, the origin of the rivers name remains unclear. What is clear is that Niger was an appellation applied in the Mediterranean world from at least the Classical era, when knowledge of the area by Europeans was slightly better than fable
3.
Mudbrick
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A mudbrick is a brick, made of a mixture of loam, mud, sand and water mixed with a binding material such as rice husks or straw. In warm regions with little timber available to fuel a kiln. In some cases brickmakers extended the life of mud bricks by putting fired bricks on top or covering them with stucco, the Great Mosque of Djenné, in central Mali, is the worlds largest mudbrick structure. This plaster must be reapplied annually, the South Asian inhabitants of Mehrgarh constructed, and lived in, mud brick houses between 7000–3300 BC. Mud bricks used at more than 15 reported sites in 3rd millennium BC are attributed as major cultural trait in the ancient Indus valley civilization, mudbricks were in use in the Middle East during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period. The Mesopotamians used sun-dried bricks in their city construction, typically these bricks were flat on the bottom and curved on the top, some bricks were formed in a square mould and rounded so that the middle was thicker than the ends. In Ancient Egypt, workers gathered mud from the Nile river, workers then tramped on the mud while straw was added to solidify the mold. In Minoan Crete at the Knossos site there is evidence that sun-dried bricks were used in the Neolithic period. Mudbricks were used to some extent in pre-Roman Egypt, and mudbrick use increased at the time of Roman influence, adobe – Often used in the making of mudbricks. Cob Earth structure Loam Rammed earth Possehl, Gregory L. Mehrgarh in Oxford Companion to Archaeology, Earth Architecture, website whose focus is contemporary issues in earth architecture. Very experienced experts are contactable and there are regular demonstrations in the area, video showing mud brick making, mud brick building and biolytic sewerage in South Africa. CRAterre, Centre de recherche architectural en terre, French university research organisation dedicated to unfired earth construction
4.
Departments of Niger
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The Regions of Niger are subdivided into 63 Departments. Before the devolution program on 1999-2005, these Departments were styled arrondissements, confusingly, the next level up had, before 2002-2005 been styled Departments. Prior to a revision in 2011, there had been 36 Departments, a draft law in August 2011 would expand that number to 63. Until 2010, Arrondissements remained a proposed subdivision of Departments, though none were used, the decentralisation process, begun in the 1995-1999 period replaced appointed Prefects at Departmental/Arrondisement level with elected councils, first elected in 1999. These were the first local elections held in the history of Niger, officials elected at Commune level are then selected as representatives at Departmental, Regional, and National level councils and administration. The Ministry of Decentralisation was created to oversee this task, on 1 August 2011, the National Assembly of Niger approved a draft law which would dramatically expand the number of Departments to 63. The law will create 27 new Departments centered on the former appointed sub departmental Postes Administratifs, the 63 Departments are broken down into Communes. The former postes administratifs for largely uninhabited desert areas or military zones were incorporated as full departments with borders to be determined, the 36 pre-2011 Departments are listed below, by Region
5.
Sultanate of Damagaram
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The Sultanate of Damagaram was a powerful pre-colonial state in what is now southeastern Niger, centered on the city of Zinder. The Sultanate of Damagaram was founded in 1731 by Muslim Kanouri aristocrats, Damagaram was technically a vassal state of the decaying Kanem-Bornu Empire, but quickly came to conquer all its fellow vassal states of western Bornu. In the 1830s, the band of Bornu nobles and retainers conquered the Myrria kingdom. By the 19th century, Damagaram had absorbed 18 Bornu vassal states in the area, Zinder rose from a small Hausa village to an important center of the Trans-Saharan trade with the moving of the capital of Damagaram there in 1736. The large fortress of the southeast central city was shortly thereafter. The Hausa town and Zengou, its Tuareg suburb, expanded with this trade, Damagaram had a mixed relationship with the other major regional power, the Sokoto Caliphate to the south. Damagaram sat astride the trade route linking Tripoli to Kano, one of the more powerful Sokoto sultanates. An east west trade from the Niger River to Bornu also passed through Zinder, making relations with animist neighbors like Maradi or the Gobirwa as profitable, and thus important. Damagaram also covered some of the more productive of Bornus western salt producing evaporation mines, as well as farms producing Ostrich feathers, highly valued in Europe. In the mid 19th century, European travelers estimated the state covered some 70,000 square kilometers and had a population over 400,000, mostly Hausa, but also Tuareg, Fula, Kanuri, Arab and Toubou. At the center of the state was the family, a Sultan with many wives and children. The sultan ruled through the activities of two officers the, Ciroma his heir-apparent the Yakudima. By the end of the 19th century, Damagaram could field an army of 5,000 cavalry,30,000 foot soldiers, and a dozen cannons, which they produced in Zinder. Damagaram could also call upon forces of the allied Kel Gres Tuareg who formed communities near Zinder and other parts of the sultanate, when the French arrived in force in the 1890s, Zinder was the only city of over 10,000 in what is today Niger. Damagaram found itself threatened by well-armed European incursions to the west, in 1898, A French force under Captain Marius Gabriel Cazemajou spent three weeks under the Sultans protection in Damagaram. Cazemajou had been dispatched to form an alliance against the British with Rabah, Cazemajou was murdered by a faction at the court, and the remainder of the French escaped, protected by other factions. In 1899, the elements of the ill-fated Voulet-Chanoine Mission finally arrived in Damagaram on its way to revenge Cazemajous death. Meeting on 30 July at the Battle of Tirmini,10 km from Zinder, with colonialism came the loss of some of Damagarams traditional lands and its most important trade partner to the British in Nigeria
Niger
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Zinder". Encyclopædia Britannica. 28 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 985.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "
Zinder travel guide from Wikivoyage
