Niger’s second largest city, Zinder and its vast urban centre mark the last Niger outpost on the ancient trans-Saharan caravan routes, before the western border with Nigeria. While its modern urban agglomeration is in a state of flux and has one of the highest population growth rates in West Africa, its historical core, represented by the ancient Birni Quarter, still remains suspended in a timeless traditional atmosphere.
Capital in French colonial times until 1926, the city of Zinder was first home to the historic seat of the powerful Sultanate of Damangaram, founded in the 18th century. The characteristic Royal Palace, in the heart of Birni, built around 1850 according to the canons of traditional Haussa architecture, in clay and richly decorated with geometric motifs, is still the home of the Sultan and his family. Around his court, a maze of narrow streets wind their way among the Il caratteristico Palazzo Reale, nel cuore di Birni, costruito intono al 1850 secondo i canoni dell’architettura tradizionale Haussa, in argilla e riccamente decorato di motivi geometrici, è ancora oggi la dimora del Sultano e della sua famiglia. Intorno alla sua Corte, un dedalo di viuzze si snodano tra le ancient houses made of banco (mud and straw), the scene in past centuries of flourishing trade in salt, ivory, gold, wood and kola nut, which flowed here via the trans-Saharan routes linking in particular the city of Agades and the Sultanates of northern Nigeria.
The district of Birni has preserved to this day its original urban fabric as an ancient fortified caravan town, protected by the ancient walls and the imposing granite rocks that surround the settlement. Its traditional architecture, richly and symbolically decorated on the façade, according to the social status of the owner, has not changed much since the German explorer Henri Barth saw it in 1855, and still represents one of the most authentic and highest expressions of architectural aesthetics of the Haussa people.
Within the Sultanate, customs and traditions have also remained virtually unchanged for more than three centuries, closely linked to the traditional social hierarchy and the noble lineage of the Sultan, who plays an extremely important role from a religious, but also a political, albeit formal, point of view. The great respect and devotion that the people manifest towards his figure are particularly evident and bursting forth during traditional ceremonies, which have been constantly perpetuated for centuries throughout the year, especially during Muslim religious festivals.
A riot of festive parades, in which the Sultan and his family receive notables and subjects, wearing elegant ceremonial robes and large turbans, in ‘Arabian Nights’ atmospheres.
Not to be missed in the city is a visit to the Grand Marché, one of the liveliest in Niger, the secular heir to the flourishing trans-Saharan trade exchanges, where one can find, among the countless goods from the entire Ahelo-Saharan region, the best leather artefacts from the whole of West Africa, one of the oldest savoir-faire of the Zinder craftsmen.
