Katsina State

Katsina and Daura are among the oldest Hausa city-states. Hausa tradition holds Daura to be the place where the legendary Bayajidda killed the serpent of the Kusugu well and married the queen of Daura, whose descendants founded the Hausa Bakwai kingdoms. From the fifteenth century the walled city of Katsina became a major centre of the trans-Saharan trade and of Islamic learning; the Gobarau Minaret, traditionally dated to that period, is one of its best-known monuments.

In the early nineteenth century the Fulani jihad led to the establishment of the Katsina and Daura emirates within the Sokoto Caliphate. Under British rule the area was administered as Katsina Province, and Katsina College, founded in 1922, educated many of northern Nigeria's early political leaders. After 1967 the emirates were part of North-Central State, renamed Kaduna State in 1976.

Katsina State was created from Kaduna State on 23 September 1987 by the government of General Ibrahim Babangida. The state is the home of former President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua and of former President Muhammadu Buhari, who was born in Daura. In recent years parts of the state, especially in its southern and western forest areas, have faced serious insecurity from armed banditry.