Niamey

Niamey is the capital of Niger, on the Niger River in the southwest of the country near the borders with Burkina Faso and Mali. The river that runs through the city also gave the country its name.

The Boubou Hama National Museum, opened in the late 1950s, has exhibition pavilions and a zoo in a park beside the river. The Grand Mosque of Niamey, built in the 1970s, has a green dome and a minaret with a stair to a view over the river. Abdou Moumouni University, the oldest university of the country, opened in the 1970s and is named after the physicist who worked on solar energy in Niger. The Grand Marché, rebuilt in the 1980s, sells cloth and grain under arches of concrete. East of the city, around the village of Kouré, lives a herd of West African giraffes, a subspecies found in the wild only in Niger, grazing freely among farms.

Zarma and Fulani fishing and farming villages stood on the riverbank before the French arrived. France chose Niamey in 1926 as the capital of the colony of Niger in place of Zinder, because it lay on the river and nearer the coast. The town grew slowly until Niger became independent in 1960 and the government began to build ministries, a bridge across the Niger River and new districts along the left bank.

Tuareg silver crosses such as the Agadez cross are cast by hand at the craft center of the museum next to stalls of leather bags. Braniger, the brewery of the city, makes Bière Niger as its main beer. Rice grown on irrigated plots along the river supplies the markets of the city. Cattle from the Sahel change hands at the livestock market on the edge of town.