Hausa Tribe

The Hausa are the largest ethnic group in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Hausa are a diverse but culturally homogeneous people based primarily in the Sahelian and the sparse savanna areas of southern Niger and northern Nigeria respectively, numbering over 80 million people with significant indegenized populations in Benin, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Chad, Sudan, Central African Republic,Republic of the Congo, Togo, Ghana, Eritrea,Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Senegal and the Gambia.

Predominantly Hausa-speaking communities are scattered throughout West Africa and on the traditional Hajj route north and east traversing the Sahara, with an especially large population in and around the town of Agadez. Other Hausa have also moved to large coastal cities in the region such as Lagos, Port Harcourt, Accra, Abidjan, Banjul and Cotonou as well as to parts of North Africa such as Libya over the course of the last 500 years. The Hausa traditionally live in small villages, as well as in towns and cities, where they grow crops, raise livestock including cattle, and engage in trade, both local and long distance across Africa. They speak the Hausa language, an Afro-Asiatic language of the Chadic group which is the most spoken indigenous African Language. The Hausa aristocracy had historically developed an equestrian based culture.Still a status symbol of the traditional nobility in Hausa society, the horse still features in the Eid day celebrations, known as Ranar Sallah . Daura city is the cultural center of the Hausa people. The town predates all the other major Hausa towns in tradition and culture.