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Diffa Prefecture (Niger)

How is the land laid out?

Most of Diffa Prefecture is uninhabited desert but in the south--near Lake Chad1 and by its feeder river along the Nigerian border--there is sufficient water. The northwest corner of the lake sometimes receives flood waters draining across the desert. In the farthest north is part of the Grand Erg--sand dune system--of Bilma.

Who lives there?

Most of the inhabitants2 speak Kanuri but almost one in ten3 speak Fulani4. The only city is Diffa with an estimated population of just under 35 thousand in 20105. Everyone is Sunni Moslem.

Map

map of Diffa Prefecture: showing borders, a lake and a river

Who was there before?

People have lived in the area since leaving Ethiopia6 about 100,000 years ago.

About ten thousand years ago it is said7 that proto-Nilo-Saharan speakers lived across a swath of Africa from Lake Turkana to the middle Niger River, evidenced physically by the 'aquatic tradition.' Amont their descendents are the Kanuri speakers. Kanuri originated across the border in Chad but spread as the Kingdoms of Kanem and Bornu grew. Two centuries after the arise of Kanem--about a thousand years ago--it converted to Islam.

The Fulani probably arrived in the Department from the west in the 19th century with the Empire of Osman dan Fodio.

Around the area

north
east and southeast
southeast, near the lake
south
west

Other broad topics

Niger

Footnotes

(1) Tchad in French. Lake Chad is Africa's third largest, before it started to dry up.
(2) There are about 400,000 Kanuri speakers in Zinder and Diffa. I guess about 230,000 live in Diffa partly based on information about the dialects.
(3) There are over 800,000 Fulani (Fulfulde) speakers in Niger. I guess only about 20,000 live in Diffa largely based on my estimate on the number of Kanuri speakers there and my exptrapolation of the Departments population in 1998 versus the 1977 census using the national ratio.
(4) Also called Fulfude.
(5) world-gazetteer.com, accessed 1/17/2010
(6) Ityopia in transliteration from Amharic.
(7) By J.E.G. Suttou and Patrick Munson.