Kano State

Kano is one of the oldest cities in West Africa. According to the Kano Chronicle, the settlement grew around Dala Hill, and by the late first millennium it was the seat of the Hausa kingdom of Kano. Under rulers such as Muhammad Rumfa in the fifteenth century the city was enlarged and walled, Islam became firmly established, and Kano developed into a leading terminus of the trans-Saharan trade in textiles, leather, salt and other goods. Its indigo dye pits at Kofar Mata date back several centuries.

Following the jihad of Usman dan Fodio, Kano became an emirate of the Sokoto Caliphate in 1805 and, under Fulani emirs, one of its richest provinces. The British captured the city in 1903 and administered it as the centre of Kano Province within the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria. The groundnut boom of the colonial era, symbolised by the city's groundnut pyramids, made Kano a major export hub linked to Lagos by railway from 1912.

Kano State was created on 27 May 1967 as one of Nigeria's original 12 states, and in 1991 its northern and eastern parts were split off to form Jigawa State. The state has remained the most populous in northern Nigeria and a centre of commerce, Islamic scholarship and political activity. Since 2019 its traditional institutions have been the subject of repeated reorganisation: the Kano Emirate was divided into five emirates in 2019, Emir Muhammadu Sanusi II was deposed in 2020, and in May 2024 the state government repealed the 2019 law and reinstated Sanusi, a decision that has been contested in court.