Maradi - City of Niger

Maradi is the third largest city in Niger and the administrative centre of Maradi Region. It is seat of the Maradi Department and an Urban Commune.

Originally part of Katsina, a Hausa state, it became independent in the nineteenth century. From the early 19th century, Maradi was home to one of several Hausa traditional rump states, formed by animist rulers and nobility who fled the rise of the Muslim Sokoto Caliphate. Elements of the Katsina ruling class continued to claim the area as the seat of a Katsina exile state before the formation of an independent Maradi Emirate in the late 1800s, ruled by the Sarkin Maradi.

Maradi was constrained by the more powerful Gobir exile state to the west, the Sultanate of Damagaram based at Zinder to the east, and Sokoto to the south. The arrival of the French in 1899 saw first the bloody destruction of the town by the Voulet-Chanoine Mission, but later saw the town recover as an important regional center of commerce, and of the French project to create export centered agriculture in the area. With independence Maradi has become a center of Hausa culture, vying with the larger traditional Hausa center of Zinder to the east.

Attractions in Maradi include the Dan Kasswa Mosque, the Centre Artisanal in the Sonitan quartier and the Katsinawa Provincial Chief's Palace, but much of the rest of the city dates from the 1950s and later and is becoming industrialised. The central Market, the Maradi grand-marché, is a large daily market of wholesale, retail, and agricultural goods from across south central Niger and the major pont of cross boder trade with Nigeria.

Entering the city from the west or east means taking a southerly exit off the two-lane highway that crosses Niger. That road takes you up to the plateau-top, past Coca-Cola, Nescafe and "Stop SIDA" signs, below a large painted cement arch, and onto the main drag through town. The city's market can be found on the right, less than a kilometer into town, with a wide entry marked by tall painted cement pillars.