Urban tradition in Africa

The African city: a source of progress and modernity

In a still very topical essay written eighteen years ago, published in 1986 by CERFE within the book edited by A. Alfonsi (et al.) " Le rapport entre ville et campagne en Afrique Occidentale et le transfert de technologie", the historian Sékéné Mody Cissoko summarises a thousand years of Sub-Saharan African urban history steeped with implications for current debates on modernity.

by Sékéné Mody Cissoko


The essay by Sékéné Mody Cissoko presents a detailed historical analysis of the old urban tradition of the African continent. It is in many respects a pioneering contribution. It was first presented at the conference entitled "The relationship between city and countryside in western Africa and the transfer of technologies", promoted by Cerfe in Bamako in 1985, and still maintains the freshness of an analysis that has contributed in no small way to contrasting the traditional representation of the exclusively "rural" character of African societies and cultures. We are thus re-proposing it here in the spirit of an e-journal which aims to provide a more precise and complete image of Africa.

Site of Ancient Walled Town, Mandura Mountain, Cameroon Source: African Studies Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries. Africa Focus. 2000

In contrast, colonisation and the capitalist economy have created large cities with no traditions or solid roots and their uncontrolled gigantism has led to deep imbalances in the national communities.

The urban issue is thus very important for the development of our countries. The historian must try to grasp the process of the appearance of the city, its development in time and space, its features, and its impact on the overall development of Africa. This study will try to focus on west Africa without overlooking the rest of the continent.

A problem of definition: the city concept in Africa

In dealing with the study of the city, there is straightaway the problem of its definition. Geographers, demographers, sociologists, economists, historians and so on, do not agree on a precise definition since each one privileges one particular factor, such as demographic size, an urban function or juridical and political status (Duby, 1980-1981).

One fixed point is the complexity of the urban phenomenon. The city is a centre of trade, handicrafts or manufacturing, of power management, of religious and cultural activities, etc. (Laboratoire "Connaissance du Tiers-Monde", 1981).

Can we apply this general definition to Sub-Saharan Africa? How do Africans themselves consider a city? According to our summary investigations, many African peoples do not seem to know the notion of city. They do not have words to describe this reality or, rather, they do not distinguish it from a village. Hence:

in northern Mandingo:
                                             dugu: village
                                             dugu baa: large village, city

in Songhay:
                                              koïra: village
                                              koïra beri: large village, city

Soninke:
                                              kaara: village
                                              sebe: city

in Yoruba:
                                              adugbo: village
                                              arinlu: city

Other languages, such as Pular, Fong and so on, do not have a word for city.

Therefore, apart from Yoruba and Soninke that make a distinction between village and city, most west African nations only use the word village, whose size (generally in demographic terms) explains whether we are dealing with a village or city. This leads us to the following conclusion: the village is the living known reality for West Africans, who are rural. The city does exist, but only as a secondary feature, and is nothing but a development, the growth of a village.

By taking the argument further, we can see that the Bambara or the Songhai contrast the dugu (koïra) with the wild uninhabited brousse (kungo). The dugu is a sign of man, while the brousse is the sign of wild nature. The dugu is therefore a fact of civilisation. A man of a dugu or koïra feels superior to the inhabitants of the brousse, the small isolated settlements connected to farming or hunting. In this sense, dugu and koïra are synonyms of city, the fruit of creation and the hearth of culture.

For west Africans, as we shall see, there is no complete break between city and village, which are two realities in a continuity of space and in symbiosis on the economic, social and cultural level.

The city is a large village, a place for trading with a varied and numerous population of merchants, craftsmen and foreigners. It is also the capital of the monarch with his entourage of courtiers, administrators, servants and craftsmen. The city is quite distinct from the village for its more developed and more concrete habitat, for the amusements and for a more refined culture that is seen in the clothing and lifestyles. The city is heterogeneity, while the village is homogeneity.

The urban tradition in Africa, which dates back to ancient times, has been uninterrupted. Our task will, in short, be to establish the main stages of its development and to highlight the specific aspects of each region and of each era, mainly focusing on West Africa. This study is naturally lacking in many respects and cannot go deeper into technical aspects of pre-colonial town-planning for want of documentation.

The ancientness of the urban phenomenon in Africa

The ancient history of most of the African continent is still the object of research. Our knowledge is limited to the Nile valley, to the banks of the Red Sea and the Mediterranean coast (Unesco, 1980).

It is here that we therefore find the urban phenomenon in distant times. The unification of clans and names by an increasingly more powerful and divinised monarchy led to the development of the residence of the monarch or the clergy. By using up part of the peasants' surplus production in the Nile valley, the state created a political or religious class. For the service of the Pharaoh, and soon after also of the urban community, a legion of craftsmen of all trades and a great mass of workers, freemen or slaves, populated the capital. The state, which monopolised everything, organised trade both inside and outside its territory.

The temple at the ruins of Great Zimbabwe (around the 13th Century), probably built by Shona people Source: Fadiman Jeffrey; University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries. Africa Focus. 2000

The pharaohs' civilisation spread to Sudan starting from the second millennium BC. The fortified military outposts and the residences of Egyptian governors became small cities in the guise of the metropolis. Such were Kerma, Semneh, Kuru, Napata and others besides. From these cities in Sudan, caravans laden with gold, spices, ivory and slaves moved north into Egypt. With the decline of the pharaohs and the conquest of Egypt by the Persians in the 8th century BC, the cities in Sudan took over from the Egyptian ones. The role of the princes of Napata in overthrowing the Persians in Egypt is well known. The city of Meroë (5th and 6th century) is the most famous thanks to its iron production.

Further south, the city of Axum (1st to 6th century) was the capital of the kingdom of the same name and was the terminus of a very busy international trading network on the banks of the Red Sea that fed great markets such as Adulis and Matara.

These trading activities went as far as the Indian Ocean and allowed supplying a string of cities on the Arabian coast and African coast. From the first millennium B. C. until the expansion of Islam in the 8th century A. D., the east coast of Africa was a place of trade with the Persian Gulf, India, China and even the Far East. A great many cities sprang up there. This urban tradition has continued uninterruptedly to this day.

Greek and Roman expansion in Egypt and in the East consolidated urbanisation. For the first time, in 311 BC, one city, Alexandria, was built according to a plan established with rational criteria by a professional town-planner. It very soon became the largest city in the civilised world, a leading scientific and cultural metropolis in its time. It certainly reflected the symbiosis between Greek and Egyptian culture.

The same can also be said of North Africa, where foreign conquerors (the Phoenicians and Romans) founded the first cities. Although these cities did not survive their founders, they left a tradition which may explain the urban progress during the Middle Ages.

For Sub-Saharan Africa, the existence of cities in ancient times is an open issue. A certain Tarikh of Timbuktu claimed that Kukia (Gao?) had existed from the pharaohs' times and that it was famed for its magicians.

African archaeology, the only one that can really provide information, is still in its early stages. The recent discovery of Djénné Diénno, which dates back to the 3rd century B. C. and which expanded in the 7th and 8th century A. D. as a great pre-Islamic mercantile city, is an interesting sign of a certain level of urban activity in the Sudanese savannah (MacIntosh R. & S., 1983).

Further east, in Nigeria, the advanced Nok culture, dating back to the first millennium B. C., seems to attest to the existence of advanced, probably urban, communities.

However, on the whole, our knowledge of sub-Saharan Africa does not allow us to point to an urban civilisation. If urbanisation is an ancient phenomenon in Africa, it was only significant in the north, North-east and the eastern strip of the continent.

The city was both connected to its monarch and the consequence of long-distance trade.

It was certainly not in contrast with the countryside, but represented its continuation in a different form. Its importance derived not from its size but from the quality of its culture, which made it an element of progress in the overall development of the continent.

Urban expansion in the Middle Ages

Initially only limited to the north of the continent, urbanisation was to extend to Sub-Saharan Africa in a vast spectacular way throughout the Middle Ages.

How can we explain this process in this part of Africa?

Sandaga Market Architecture Similar to Buildings in Timbuktu, Senegal, Dakar Source: Klebba, University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries. Africa Focus. 2000

The classic explanation is that the city is an element imported from the Arabic-Islamic civilisation, and more specifically that it was the result of the great trans-Saharan trade. This thesis, with more or less ideological tones, is rejected by advocates of an endogenous origin of West African cities.

Since the development of metallurgy allowed greater agricultural production, the surplus achieved influenced social differentiation and the establishment of a political class both in the Soninké societies of Gadiaga and also in those of southern Nigeria (Bathily, 1985).

Political power created the first cities, the kingdom's capitals and markets for neighbouring communities. This political process could explain the birth of the first village-cities long before the expansion of Islam. Ghana, Kukia and other agglomerations existed before the 9th century. The Yoruba did not know Islam until the 19th century, and it seems that it stayed in the background with respect to Medieval trans-Saharan trade.

These explanations appear plausible. From Djenné Djenno to Nok, there is a process of internal development that could explain the appearance of urban communities. Trans-Saharan trade accelerated this process for a great many existing cities and also created others from scratch.

We shall thus consider the cities linked to Islamic expansion and those independent of it.

Cities linked to Islamic expansion

At the end of the 8th century, Islam had spread throughout the Middle East, to the whole of north Africa and to much of Sub-Saharan Africa and the east coast.

Very soon, Islam presented itself as the heir of the great urban civilisations (the Hellenistic, Persian and Roman) and in turn developed the largest and most populated cities of the times. In this way, the Arab-Islamic civilisation became essentially urban and based on trade. It caused a sort of urban explosion in the Maghreb, in Sahelo-Sudanese Africa and in East Africa.

We shall focus on West Africa, whose remote past did not have certain urban traditions.

Sahelo-Sudanese cities

Place of Kings in Jenne, Mali Source: Klebba, University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries. Africa Focus. 2000

Between the 9th and 16th century, the Sahelo-Sudanese region opened up to the outside world - towards the east and the Mediterranean. The traditional economy was integrated with regional and especially trans-Saharan trade. Thousands of caravans crossed the Sahara in every direction every year, for over seven centuries! They brought men, goods and ideas to the coastal cities of the north, and these became the constitutive elements for urban civilisation both south and north of the Sahara.

This north-south trade, which also reached the forest areas, gave a boost to the west African economy and was a lasting influence on rural societies and cultures.

Some researchers put the birth of the Sudanese States (Ghana, Mali, Songhai, Kanem Bornu, Hausa cities) down to this long-distance trading. Without going to such extremes, we cannot but admit that these states gained much of their resources and power from trade. What seems undisputable is the birth of many cities not due to political power but to the dynamics of the trans-Saharan trade throughout the Sahel region, from the Atlantic Ocean to Lake Chad, on the banks of the two great rivers, the Senegal and the Niger.

In this way, we can identify two distinct areas of cities (Mauny, 1961; Jacques-Meunié, 1961; AAVV, 1973). In the Sahel region, from west to east, we can cite Uadane, Aulil, Azugui, Audaghost, Ghana (Koumbi Saleh?), Tiscit, Ualata (Biru), Diara, Burem, Mema, Tendirma, Timbuktu, Arauan, Gao (Kukia?), Tadmekka, Takkeda, Agades and so on.

The Sudanese region presents others, often along the great communication routes (rivers or important highways). Very soon, the Senegal valley woke up to urban life. We can cite Tekrur, Silla, Barissa (?), Gundiuru (Ghiaru?) and others besides. Along the Niger there were Niani, Djenné, Dia and so on.

From the 14th century the Hausa cities were a great urban boost, with cities like Daura, Katsena, Kano, Zeg-Zeg and Nikki, in contact with cities of Chad, Ndjimi and Gaoka, and with those of the north.

In southern Sudan, we should perhaps mention the capitals of the Mossi kingdoms, such as Ouagadougou, and the market villages of the forest regions, the places of kola and gold.

The Mansa (emperor) of Mali, the famous Kanku Mussa, used to say to his Cairo friends in 1324 that his empire included four hundred cities (Al Omari, 1927). Even if an exaggeration, this statement well demonstrates the importance of urbanisation in Medieval Sudan.

We should obviously distinguish the political and administrative capitals, such as Kumbi Saleh, Niani, Gao, from the mercantile cities (being more numerous and famous), such as Timbuktu and Djenné, and from mining centres (such as Aulil).

The cities generally had almost the same appearance and form. The main problem of the site was water supply. Therefore, cities were situated near a river, lake or, more frequently, near a vadi or lasting water-bearing stratum. The water problem was not solved by a great many cities of the Sahel region and this led to their decline and eventual disappearance.

The Sahelo-Sudanese city was composed of two parts. On one side there was the mercantile city, with a dense heterogeneous population; on the other, there was the political part, perhaps the older of the two, and was the residence of the monarch and of the ruling class. Therefore, on one side there was the market, mosques and public square, while on the other the royal palace and courtiers' residences. This bipolarisation between political and mercantile spheres, very widespread between the 10th and 14th century, seemed to fade in the 15th and 16th century in cities like Timbuktu and Djenné. The city was composed of concentric circles, with the oldest and richest quarters in the centre and with the poor and slaves living in huts on the outskirts.

It would appear that, initially, the city was a political creation and that, with commercial development, a market outside the walls expanded until it became a commercial area. That is perhaps why Sahel cities did not have ramparts.

The urban plan did not present any great streets or geometric roads. Tombuktu and
Djénné were just agglomerations of houses separated by more or less narrow alleys certainly full of waste waters of evacuation, domestic refuse and toilets. The Medieval African city does not seem to have found a suitable solution to the management of collective life by organising specific services. Would the technical development have enabled this at the time?

House building adapted to the materials available on site, clay or stone, depending on the region. They also managed to build terraced houses, often one or two storeys high, or splendid mosques such as the ones of Timbuktu or Djenné, that have withstood the rigours of time. Later on, an architectural style took shape, the Sudanese style, which we shall see below.

In many respects, the Sahel-Sudanese city was not detached from the countryside. The citizens' fields extended outwards for a great distance. Timbuktu and Djenné partly lived on the crops of their outlying areas inhabited by their slaves. The Ulema of Timbuktu had hundreds of slaves who farmed the river valley and who travelled continuously between the city and their villages. For the Songhai, the city was distinguished for its population. It was the large village or Koira Beri.

If the small Sahel settlements did not have more than one or a few thousand inhabitants, the cities of the Sahel-Sudanese region were large and populous. In the 16th century, Gao and Timbuktu had as many as 100,000 inhabitants. Djenné and the Hausa cities had tens of thousands of inhabitants.

These populations were generally very composite. Timbuktu was the symbol of this cosmopolitanism so typical of urban civilisation (Cissoko, 1975). Alongside the Arab-Berbers, merchants and literate, there were many other ethnic communities represented: the Songhai, Wangara (Mandingo), Wakoré (Soninké), Mossi, Peul, Bozo, Hausa, Bariba and so on. Each ethnic group generally lived in the same neighbourhood governed by its own chief, who was elected, and generally practiced the same trade. In Timbuktu, the Biru, from the north of Sankoré, were masons. The Wangara lived near the mosque of Sidiyaya, the Tuatians near the great mosque, the Gahadamesians in the middle class central neighbourhood (Cissoko, 1975).

View of Cairo Looking to East Source: Wass Betty, University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries. Africa Focus. 2000

The city did not have a privileged political status. In the Sudanese empires, it was placed under the command of a chief (Koi) appointed by the central authority. He supervised the local leaders, such as neighbourhood chiefs, the very influential cadis and so on. He also appointed the various citizen functionaries, such as the market tax collectors, guardians, security guards, etc. The role of Koi took second place in the 16th century and the cadi became the first magistrate of the city. A combination of judge, censor and often imam, he was the leader of the city and practically presided over all public, religious and state services. However, he was still appointed by the emperor. Thanks to his administration accepted by all, the cadi assured the necessary peace and justice in order to carry on business activities.

The city was in fact the centre of business activity and craftwork. Agriculture was certainly not neglected, but became a secondary activity left to the outlying areas and to the slaves of rich citizens. Animal husbandry in the immediate surroundings provided a daily supply of produce to the city.

Trade remained the driving force of urban life. It subordinated all the other activities and made them possible. From local market retailers and hawkers to the great trans-Saharan trade dealing in salt, gold, textiles, weapons, horses, slaves, spices, foodstuffs and so on, the city obtained the essential of its resources.

The city's needs gave rise to a lot of trades, manual work and employment in construction, transport, foodstuffs, etc. Craftwork in some sectors, such as textiles, tailoring, footwear and vase-ware, partly contributed to trading activities. Cities like Kano and Djenné were famous for their textiles.

There does not appear to have been any urban capital investment in the handicraft industry, as in the case of western Europe. Its development thus did not lead to capitalist manufacturing.

Trading maintained its basically elementary nature. The earnings, often colossal, were exported abroad or invested in poorly productive sectors. In this way, the development of trading activities, which were the mainstay of Sahelo-Sudanese cities, did not produce any technical revolutions or lasting changes in economic production.

However, the Sudanese city played a considerable role in the development of west African civilisation. It was the centre of spiritual activities, the place where Islam rooted and then spread to the whole region.

The Sahelo-Sudanese city was an important centre of Islamic culture. Learned men of the university of Timbuktu, the marabut, the teachers of the schools of Katséna, Gao, Dia and Gundiuru, to name but a few, contributed to the spreading of Islam and to its adaptation to local cultures.

The city created an original architectural style, the Sudanese style, that was clearly distinguished from the rural style of round huts. The city was made of terraced houses with pillars and with an imposing pyramid-shaped front. This style spread throughout the Sudanese savannah and reached upper Cote d'Ivoire and even the forest regions, naturally adapting to local materials and cultures.

What about lifestyles, clothing, food, festivities and so on? The city unquestionably influenced rural life and contributed to a certain refinement of customs, even among the non-Islamised populations of western Sudan.

In conclusion, the Sudanese city is largely the product of trans-Saharan trade. Its main functions were commercial. It was a factor of progress in the region, despite its dependence on the outside and its low productivity.

Non-Islamic cities: Yoruba and Benin

Of all the West African regions the Yoruba countries, situated west of the lower Niger, are the most urbanised. Here we find many cities with several thousands of inhabitants, and it is possible to speak of an urban civilisation (Laboratoire "Connaissance du Tiers-Monde", 1981; Ki Zerbo, 1978; Crowder, 1962).

Yoruba-Benin, far away from trans-Saharan routes and unaware of the Atlantic world until the 15th century, bears testimony to an endogenous urban development starting from an internal dynamic of Yoruba society. Here, the city appears to have had a religious and political origin before becoming an economic conurbation.

The oldest city, Ifé, dating back to before the 10th century, was the residence of a priest-king. It was later overtaken by Oyo, whose chief, Oduduwa, unified the Yoruba villages under his control. Oduduwa's descendents founded other cities, among which Benin, in the 12th century. Thus, many villages grew up into cities between the 12th and 15th centuries. Some were political capitals (Oyo, Benin and secondary residences), others were religious centres, such as Ife, which was the seat of the Oni, the religious leader of the Yoruba.

The Oyo monarchy, a very decentralised regime, left each city to govern itself. The city extended into its neighbouring countryside and took in the surrounding villages to create an urban conurbation governed by an elected king (balé) and by a powerful senate composed of representatives (ogbani) of the great families and upper classes. This relatively democratic institution greatly contributed to the development of the cities from both an urban and artistic point of view.

The cities had a generally homogeneous Yoruba population and shared a rural origin. They formed the centre of a territory with not too distant borders and encompassed a number of hamlets and villages mostly belonging to peasants connected to them by very close family or economic ties. The city was thus the centre of the countryside, its metropolis. It sprawled into the countryside and was in communion or in symbiosis with it. City dwellers were thus mostly farmers and rural people. In this way, the Yoruba city had a solid stable base and was different from the Sudanese city. Created by its territory, the Yoruba city was little affected by fluctuations in long-distance trading. If this means that it was unaware of trade, how then can we explain the Yoruba flair for business activities that is renowned even today all along the Bight of Benin?

The urban conurbations developed an intense non-rural activity through trading in foodstuffs, but especially through an important handicraft industry. The needs initially of the political and religious aristocracy and then of the masses of townspeople led to the development of a diversified and organised casteless handicraft industry, with metalwork (brass, copper and iron), woodwork, weaving, earthenware, construction and so on. Each trade had its own guild with its own hierarchy, gods and code. Some tradesmen, such as the ironworkers and weavers, had high level techniques that made their artistic and textile products very original.

There was thus much trading between Yoruba cities, but also with the outside, both northwards and westwards. The opening up of Atlantic trade, in the 15th century, strengthened this trend and brought new lifeblood to urban development.

Portuguese navigators were struck by the beauty and organisation of the cities in this region. Unlike the Sudan, the urbanisation here seemed more structured and more modern.

The dwelling places of the ogbani ruling class and the balé's palaces occupied the centre of the city, while the shrines and temples were located on the outskirts. Fairly wide avenues connected the various parts of the city to the gateways. The city was generally surrounded by high walls with a large water-filled moat. Buildings were made of clay and had thatched roofs. This culture that was so adept in the art of earthenware production and in metalworking strangely did not use kiln-baked bricks and did not know Sudanese type terraced housing. In this way, the Yoruba city had a more rural look that the Sudanese one. It was certainly more airy, cleaner and produced art works among the finest in Africa.

This urban culture was not a marginal phenomenon, but something that was experienced by most of the Yoruba townspeople. Despite the ups and downs of history, the Yoruba region remained one of cities, with some declining while others being reborn.

Swahilia

Walls of Jenne, Mali Source: Hutchison John, University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries. Africa Focus. 2000

The other important element of urban development in Sub-Saharan Africa is the East coast, which maintained the ancient tradition and flourished in the Middle Ages thanks to trade.

This urban development is linked to Islamic expansion and to long-distance overland and maritime trade.

The routes and products had not really changed from ancient times. The novelty was Islam and Arab merchants in the main cities, where they founded sultanates centring on magnificent trading cities embellished with mosques and multi-storey palaces (Marsh, Kingsnorth, 1974). From the north to the centre, the coast numbered as many as thirty-seven cities, the most famous of which in the Middle Ages were Mogadishu, Malindi, Mombassa, Kiloa, Sofala, and the islands of Pemba and Zanzibar.

Like the Sahel cities, these too lived on trade, and were considered cosmopolitan and Muslim. They were not very productive and relied on trading products (gold, copper, spices, ivory, etc.) and slaves of the Bantu hinterland with foreign goods. Did they not encourage urban development in the hinterland, where fortified cities such as Zimbabwe sprang up from the 13th to 15th centuries (Fagan, 1984)? They were thus familiar with advanced commercial and maritime techniques, and used metal coins minted by the sultans.

Their more lasting contribution was the effort to synthesise African culture with the Arab-Persian one. This created the Swahili language and culture, which today represents the basis of the linguistic unity of East African peoples.

Despite the decline of these cities at the end of the Middle Ages, the urban tradition remained alive on the east coast and the old cities, like Mogadishu, re-flourished with colonialism and with later independence.

In conclusion, one could say that the Middle Ages, that elsewhere continued an ancient urban tradition, were fundamental for the birth of cities in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, despite the numerical importance of the cities in West Africa, apart from Yoruba-Benin, the urban phenomenon does not seem to be considerable. The population remained mostly a rural one. The exchange of products and ideas, and the grouping of peoples into urban agglomerations, on the whole contributed to broadening the perception of the Sudanese and to providing a base for Islam, which became an African religion.

City founders and governors were certainly unaware of town-planning problems and had not found suitable solutions. They were people of their times!

Later developments: from the 16th to 19th century

The subsequent development is marked by two main facts that would shape Africa's future: the arrival of the Europeans, starting from the mid 15th century, and the decline - if not downright ruin - of trans-Saharan trade at the end of the 16th century. From the 16th to 19th century the economy, society and cultural values underwent profound changes.

The decline of the Sahelo-Sudanese cities

With the Turkish conquest of the Maghreb, except for Morocco, competition from the Atlantic caravel was to accelerate the decline of trans-Saharan trade (Magalhaes Codinho, 1969). Caravans no longer crossed the Sahara, save for very few. The peace and security assured by the powerful states disappeared with the fall of the last Sudanese empire in 1591. Although the Hausa cities and the Kanem Bornu still prospered, they were destined to decline starting from the late 17th century. The Sahelo-Sudanese cities fell into a long period of agony. The most fragile disappeared completely. Others returned to rural life. In the mid 19th century, Gao was nothing but a miserable village of about a thousand people (Barth, 1861). When it fell to the French, declining Timbuktu counted a mere six thousand inhabitants! Djénné still managed to survive, miserably. Sudanese urban civilisation broke up.

The Sudan went back to rural life. Migrations led to the birth of villages throughout the Sudanese savannah in the 17th and 18th centuries. The city did not completely disappear, but it had lost its economic and cultural significance. Newer cities further south, straddling the great highways, replaced the older ones. However, these were only large market-villages, such as Sansading, Kankan, Kong and Bamako. Many of them had a rural look: houses without a style, internal fields, domestic animals, etc.

Most of these cities were political creations, state capitals (Segu, Diara, Koniakary, Sikasso, Timbo, Labé, etc.), with their external fortifications (tata) and their markets. Unlike the Medieval cities, their population rarely exceeded a few thousand people. Segu, the largest of them, had between 25 and 30 thousand inhabitants at the end of the 18th century (Park Mungo, 1799).

It was in the Hausa region that dimensions were more important and, despite their decline, the Hausa cities preserved their traditions right up to the start of the colonial period. In western Sudan, this tradition crumbled away. European colonists found a deeply "ruralised" region.

In contrast, Atlantic commercial activities based on the slave trade transformed the features of the African coast. It strengthened the existing monarchies and created their own trading bases, some of which were even in the hinterland.

These European outposts, like their trans-Saharan counterparts, were exclusively destined for trade. They soon became the hub of modern urban development. We may recall St. Louis, Gorée, Albreda, Bissau, Cap Coast, Elmina, Axim and Fernando Pô.

These were European cities with a minimum level of organisation, supply services, communications routes (port and roads), stores and houses built with solid materials, all in the interest of trade.

The slave-trading monarchs, above all in the Bight of Benin, also got organised for other trading activities. The ancient capital cities turned into cities with a certain urban style under European influence. The old urban tradition of the Yoruba and of Benin was enriched under this influence. One may wonder whether the roads and avenues in a geometric plan, the square hut shaped house, so characteristic of the Atlantic coast up to the Gabon, were inspired by the European model.

The city of Benin described by 17th century European slave-traders seems to have had this influence. It was a large striking, almost modern, city. With a rectangular plan, it was crossed by "thirty large very straight roads … and a plethora of small side roads" (Sieur de la Croix, 1688 p.167), that all led to nine gateways. A great avenue separated the city from the royal palace, which was an actual citadel with many apartments for the king, his family and the great dignitaries.

Even the sovereigns of Dahomey embellished their capital city, Abomey, with a series of palaces that are still impressive for their vast size, for their geometric proportions and for their rich artistic décor. Porto Novo, Uidah, Jacquin and Badagny were slave-trading centres. Kumassi, the capital of the Ashanti, developed an almost modern style. A network of roads, regularly kept clean by a public service, criss-crossed the city.

Great Zimbabwe Ruins, 13th Century Source: Fadiman Jeffrey, University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries. Africa Focus. 2000

All these African coastal cities had the same features. They owed their origins to those in power and presented a certain modernity in their urban structure; and they were never isolated with respect to the countryside. According to Benin-Yoruba tradition, the modern city extended into the countryside through the surrounding villages. It had the features of an urban conurbation. Its functions were manifold. Farming was as important as trading. The political and administrative functions subordinated all the other activities. This is clearly seen on the basis of the kind of population, that included the monarch and the mass of people connected to his service: functionaries, courtiers, soldiers, craftsmen of every trade, servants, religious and ceremonial personnel. This category of the population was preponderant even in cities such as Abomey, where the monarch reserved himself the monopoly of trading activities.

The prosperity of these cities, in fact, derived from their role as intermediaries between European slave-traders and the hinterland, where some important urban centres grew up, such as Kong, Bonduku, Buna, Kankan, Bamako, Dramané and many others, all geared to Atlantic trade. In West Africa, and even in Africa as a whole, the urban phenomenon abated in these centuries of insecurity, poverty and slave-trading. Apart from the Bight of Benin, the city - in the Sudanese and medieval sense of the word - became rare and its importance faded.

The great regenerating political-religious movements of the great Muslim empires of western Sudan, from the late 18th century to the 19th century, and the resistance to colonial penetration did not change the state of things. Of course, the slave-trade went into ruin, and the restored security allowed the development of important inter-regional trade centring on the existing Sudanese cities. The new political powers turned some villages into strongholds, which soon became great trading and administrative cities in the Toucouleur empire of Segu and in the one of Sokoto. The Muslim authorities created new capitals from scratch (ham dallaye, Sokoto, Dinguiraye, etc.), according to the Sudanese urban model.

These cities, usually surrounded by fortifications (tata), differed from the coastal ones for their neglect of urban planning. They had some elements in common with Sudanese architectural tradition, such as the terraced houses, mosques along the lines of the one of Djénné, and residential palaces of a heavy and sinister Sudanese style.

The end of the 19th century saw colonial domination and the creation of a great number of military and administrative centres according to the lines of penetration and the choice of old cities and villages as administrative and trading bases. These centres became the hub of another urban development that still revolutionises African societies.

General conclusion

Rooftop View of Jenne, Mali Source: Rossing Mel, University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries. Africa Focus. 2000

Since very remote times, the urban phenomenon has been a component of African civilisation, even if its impact was not of the same depth and duration everywhere. In fact, as regards tropical Africa, the city - which dated back to the Middle Ages and whose development was hindered by historical events - did not but marginally mark the civilisations, which remained deeply rural. Even the lexical uncertainties confirm this fact.

West Africa, that we have taken as an example, has in any case experienced almost a thousand years of urban development in its various regions. The city was both a creation of the powerful authorities and also an emanation of trade, and always a complex phenomenon, with many functions. Three types of city can be identified: the Muslim Sudanese city, the Yoruba-Benin city and the coastal settlements. The first and third type were cities linked to long-distance trade, i.e. with the outside. The second type was born from an endogenous development of the African territory and did not experience a break with the countryside as regards appearance or functions.

Urban planning seemed more developed in the coastal cities and in the Benin-Yoruba region with respect to the Sudan, perhaps due to European slave-trader influence. The terraced building model and the search for a style gave the Sudanese city a more marked urban aspect. In fact, a city mirrors a culture and contributes to developing that culture. The cities have been centres for spreading spiritual and intellectual activities, and also artistic and technical creativity. They played a key role in the spreading of Islam, ideas, new customs and material wealth in rural society. They have, at all times, guaranteed progress and modernity to society as a whole and have left a commercial tradition with ethnic groups such as the (Soninké, Hausa Yoruba...), who still play a vital role in the economic development of their countries.

Emblematic of this, for example, is the widespread use of cellular telephones which enable people to overcome the problem of an insufficient or lacking fixed telephone network. It is estimated (www3.sn.apc.org/africa/afstat.htm) that today in Africa one out of every 35 Africans has a cell phone. In a country like Ivory Coast there are currently 30 cell phones per 1,000 inhabitants and in Gabon the figure increases to 98. In Senegal the number of subscribers to mobile phones has risen from 1,412 in 1996 to 500,000 in 2002. In the period 2000-2002 alone the figure increased by 300,000 subscribers. This makes the number of cell phone users almost double hard line users. www.africanti.org/resultats/documents
/externes/guignard/DEA.pdf

Over a longer period of time, there has also been a huge increase in the purchase of radios and televisions. As regards radios, the data concerning the whole of Africa ( UNESCO source) shows an increase between 1970 and 1997 from 93 to 216 radios per 1,000 inhabitants (in 1997 the worldwide average was 418 per 1,000 inhabitants). As regard television sets, in the same period the figure has risen from 4,6 to 60 per 1,000 inhabitants. These data are aggregate and include countries in North Africa and South Africa. But if we consider the reality of specific countries in Sub-Saharian Africa (World Bank source) it is easy to see that there has been a significant increase in absolute terms, above all in consideration of the changes in recent years. As for television sets, the number per 1,000 inhabitants rose between 1995 and 2001 from 6 to 12 in Burkina Faso, from 2 to 30 in Burundi, from 6 to 45 in Benin, from 24 to 34 in Cameroon, from 18 to 25 in Kenya, from 74 to 134 in Zambia, from 94 to 118 in Ghana, from 85 to 273 in Sudan, and in Gabon from 47 to 326. It is estimated, furthermore, that 1 African out of 400 subscribes to cable TV.

Regarding the circulation of daily newspapers, while the number of copies per 1,000 inhabitants decreased worldwide between 1970 and 1996, dropping from 107 to 96, in Africa it increased, even if minimally in the same period, rising from 12 to 16 copies per 1,000 inhabitants.

Changes are also taking place in the field of information and telecommunications technology, although the existing digital divide is still far from being bridged. This is one of the main topics discussed in African Societies and those behind the magazine are interested in promoting a solution to this problem (see issue no. 2). In spite of the enormous gap that characterizes the African countries in this field, it is worth mentioning the fact that virtually everywhere in Africa there has been an increase in the number of Personal Computers. Just to give a few examples: between 1995 and 2000, the number of computers per 1,000 inhabitants rose from 0.6 to 4.9 in Kenya, from 5.6 to 9.8 in Gabon, from 7.2 to 16.8 in Senegal and from 3.6 to 21.6 in Togo. Apple Computer, just one of the many manufacturers and not the largest, has in West Africa alone 42 outlets employing more than 500 people and a business volume that is growing at a yearly rate of 5%. Countries like Nigeria, Gabon, Senegal and Ghana are considered strategic markets by Compaq, Hewlett Packard, Epson and IBM. The demand is represented mostly by the public administrations, with a market share that varies from 50-75% depending on the country, followed by private enterprise and individual buyers for a market share that varies, but is never less than 15-20% .

Consequently, even the Internet has spread, although it is a slow process and shows considerable differences depending on the area3. For example, there was one public access point to the Internet per 20,000 inhabitants in the Dakar region in 2001 and that didn't take into consideration private subscribers. These data obviously refer to particular situations, but they are an indication of the changes that are taking place and which may soon involve the whole of Africa.