State: Katsina

Katsina State sits in Nigeria’s far north, with Katsina city as its capital. The state was created on 23 September 1987.

The state borders Zamfara to the west, Kano and Jigawa to the east, and Kaduna to the south, with an international border against Niger Republic along its northern edge.

The Hausa people make up the large majority of the population, with smaller Fulani communities living alongside them across the state.

Farming remains the backbone of the local economy, with millet, sorghum, maize, rice, groundnuts, and cotton grown widely, and livestock rearing common across the drier northern areas.

The Gobarau Minaret, built centuries ago as part of one of West Africa’s oldest centers of Islamic learning, still stands in Katsina city, and the Gidan Korau National Museum preserves artifacts from the old Katsina emirate. Kofar Soro, one of the surviving gates of the historic city wall, marks what was once the boundary of old Katsina town.

Katsina has given Nigeria two presidents: Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, who served from 2007 until his death in 2010, and Muhammadu Buhari, who first ruled as military head of state in the 1980s and later returned as elected president from 2015 to 2023.