50 Fun Facts About African Kingdoms

Which emperor of Mali dazzled Cairo with his gold while travelling to Mecca on pilgrimage in 1324?

Mansa Musa gave away so much gold in Cairo that its value across Egypt is said to have dropped noticeably. His reign is commonly regarded as the high point of Mali's power.

Which modern country, home to the ancient royal city of Meroë, contains more pyramids than Egypt?

Sudan's Nubian pyramids are tall, narrow and steep, rising at about 70 degrees. Those at Meroë hold kings and queens buried between about 300 BC and 350 AD.

Which island sultanate off East Africa fought an 1896 war against Britain that lasted less than an hour?

Zanzibar gave up after roughly 38 minutes of fighting, which makes the clash the shortest war in recorded history.

Which West African kingdom fielded the all-female regiment that inspired the 2022 film The Woman King?

Dahomey kept its women's regiment, known locally as the Agojie, from the 17th century until the late 19th. Europeans who met them called them Amazons.

The Kingdom of Benin, famous for its brass and bronze plaques, had its capital in which modern country?

Nigeria is home to Benin City, the old royal capital in Edo State. The neighbouring Republic of Benin has no historical link to the kingdom.

Which southern African country is named after a ruined medieval stone city built by ancestors of the Shona?

Zimbabwe borrowed the name of the ruins, which contains the Shona word for houses. The walled city served as a royal capital from the 13th century.

Which trading city of the Mali Empire became a famed centre of Islamic learning around its Sankoré mosque?

Timbuktu's scholars and trade network supported an important book trade in the city's heyday. It had joined Mali early in the 14th century.

Which Zulu king reorganised his army into a formidable force and was assassinated by his half-brothers in 1828?

Shaka is credited with the iklwa, a short stabbing spear that replaced the long throwing assegai in close combat.

Which West African rice dish takes its name from the Wolof people, founders of a medieval Senegambian empire?

Jollof is named for the Wolof, whose Jolof Empire in modern Senegal lasted from the mid-14th century until 1549.

Ethiopia's Solomonic emperors claimed descent from King Solomon and which biblical queen?

Sheba's queen, in the dynasty's founding story, bore Solomon a son called Menelik I. The emperors who traced their line to him ruled until 1974.

Which kingdom south of Egypt conquered its northern neighbour and ruled it as the 25th Dynasty of pharaohs?

Kush supplied the pharaohs of the Nubian Dynasty, whose reunified realm was the largest Egyptian empire since the New Kingdom. Assyrian invasions ended their rule.

Which mineral, cut from the desert at Taghaza, did Saharan caravans carry south to exchange for West African gold?

Salt was so plentiful at Taghaza that houses there were built from blocks of it. A French explorer saw their ruins in 1828.

In Ashanti legend, which royal object did the priest Okomfo Anokye call down from the sky?

A golden stool landed on the lap of King Osei Tutu in the legend. It is believed to house the spirit of the whole nation, so it must never touch the ground.

Which woven strip cloth do Ashanti folk tales say weavers modelled on the patterns of Anansi the spider?

Kente, in Ashanti oral tradition, began at Bonwire, where a loom was introduced in the 17th century.

Which Ethiopian emperor, overthrown in a 1974 coup, is accorded divine importance by followers of Rastafari?

Haile Selassie became known as Ras Tafari Makonnen in 1917, years before his coronation. The religion that reveres him emerged in the 1930s.

At which 1896 battle did Emperor Menelik II's Ethiopian army rout an invading Italian force?

Adwa forced Italy to recognise Ethiopia's sovereignty in the Treaty of Addis Ababa. No other African country of the era owed its independence to a military victory.

Which Ethiopian town is famous for churches hewn from solid rock, among them the finely carved Church of Saint George?

Lalibela is named after the king who, in local tradition, was instructed to build a second Jerusalem in Ethiopia. The town was once known as Roha.

Which Bantu language, rich in Arabic loanwords, grew up in the trading towns of the East African coast?

Swahili emerged as the coast's lingua franca in the era of contact between its Bantu-speaking inhabitants and Arab traders from across the Indian Ocean.

Which island did the Merina kingdom almost wholly unite in the 1800s under rulers such as Queen Ranavalona I?

Madagascar's Queen Ranavalona I spent a 33-year reign resisting French and British influence. France finally conquered the kingdom in the 1890s.

Which country, known as the Gold Coast until 1957, took its name from a medieval West African trading empire?

Ghana revived the name Arab traders gave to Wagadu, an empire whose royal title is thought to translate as ruler of gold.

Sonni Ali and Askia the Great built which West African empire, ruled from its capital at Gao?

Songhai grew into one of the largest African empires in history, then collapsed after its defeat at the Battle of Tondibi in 1591.

Which founder of the Mali Empire, nicknamed the Lion of Mali, won the Battle of Kirina around 1235?

Sundiata Keita beat the Sosso king Soumaoro at Kirina to become Mali's first emperor. His life is the subject of a famous epic poem handed down by word of mouth.

Which West African storytellers, singers and musicians memorise histories and pass them down by word of mouth?

Griots tell memorised stories of the past instead of writing history books. The craft often runs in families, handed from one generation to the next.

Mali's Great Mosque of Djenné, first built around the 13th century, is the world's largest building of which material?

Mud brick walls erode in the yearly rains, so the whole town of Djenné turns out for a festival to replaster the mosque by hand.

Which city in a rainforest region near Lake Bosomtwe was the capital of Osei Tutu's Ashanti Empire?

Kumasi owes its name, in one tradition, to the Kum tree under which Osei Tutu negotiated for the land.

Which ancient kingdom of northern Ethiopia struck its own gold coins and raised giant stone obelisks over royal tombs?

Aksum was listed by the prophet Mani as one of the four great powers of the 3rd-century world, alongside Persia, Rome and China.

Which biblical relic does Ethiopia's Orthodox Church claim to guard beside the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion?

Ark of the Covenant replicas matter in everyday worship too: copies of its tablets, called tabots, are kept in every Ethiopian Orthodox church.

Which 17th-century queen of Ndongo and Matamba allied with the Dutch to fight Portuguese expansion in Angola?

Nzinga, in a popular story, was offered only a mat at talks with the Portuguese governor, so an attendant knelt to serve as her chair.

The Kanem–Bornu Empire, among the longest-lived in world history, grew up around which African lake?

Chad's basin sustained the empire from about 700 to 1902, fed by trade across the Sahara. Its rulers converted to Islam in the 11th century.

Which empire became the largest Yoruba-speaking state, feared by neighbouring kingdoms for the force of its cavalry?

Oyo's horsemen had limits: an attempt to conquer the Benin Kingdom failed when the mountains of Ekiti stopped the cavalry's advance.

Which Hausa warrior queen of Zazzau is credited with ringing her cities in earthen walls?

Amina's walls, as the old Hausa fortifications are known, survive in places. She is also credited with bringing kola nut cultivation to the area.

Which technique, mastered by the royal metalworkers of Benin City, produced the plaques known as the Benin Bronzes?

Lost-wax casting gave the plaques their high relief. Most of them were carried off from the royal palace by a military expedition in 1897.

A small figure of which animal, made of wood covered in gold foil, lay in a royal grave at Mapungubwe?

Rhinoceros, divining bowl and sceptre were buried together in the original gold burial, one of 23 graves uncovered near the hilltop palace in the 1930s.

At which 1879 battle did King Cetshwayo's Zulu army defeat the first British invasion of Zululand?

Isandlwana was the British Army's worst loss to an indigenous foe with far inferior weapons. It provoked a heavily reinforced second invasion.

Which island sultanate off Tanzania grew rich by seizing Sofala, the port for gold and ivory from the interior?

Kilwa coins have been found as far away as the Wessel Islands off northern Australia. Gold revenues from Sofala paid for the sultans' expansion along the coast.

Which kingdom north of Lake Victoria, ruled by a kabaka, used fleets of war canoes to control the lake?

Buganda's war canoes could be over 72 feet long and carry 60 to 100 warriors on top of their crew. Its fleets ruled the lake from the 1840s.

Which North African country's Alawi dynasty rose to power in the 1600s from the oasis region of Tafilalt?

Morocco's Alawi sultans trace their descent from Ali, and the first of them was declared sultan of the Tafilalt in 1631.

Which southern African kingdom's first king, Moshoeshoe I, ruled from the plateau stronghold of Thaba Bosiu?

Lesotho's first king held a stronghold whose name means mountain at night, because it was believed to grow in the dark and shrink by day.

Which small southern African kingdom did its king officially rename in April 2018, dropping the name Swaziland?

Eswatini is the name commonly used in the Swazi language. The kingdom had been a British territory from 1903 until it regained full independence in 1968.

Which European capital hosted the 1884–85 conference that formalised the colonial Scramble for Africa?

Berlin's conference agreed a framework for recognising European 'effective occupation' of African coasts. Many of the deals that carved up the continent were struck outside it.

Which Tangier-born traveller reached the Mali Empire's capital in the 1350s and described his journeys in the Rihla?

Ibn Battuta travelled more than any other explorer in pre-modern history, covering around 117,000 km, several times the distance credited to Marco Polo.

Which small sea shells served as money across West African kingdoms, even in regions far from the coast?

Cowries stayed in use so long that parts of British West Africa accepted them for tax payments into the early 20th century.

Which Queen Mother of Ejisu led the Ashanti uprising of 1900 against the British Empire?

Yaa Asantewaa had become regent of her district when the British exiled its chief in 1896. She died in exile herself, in the Seychelles, in 1921.

Which ancient language, no longer spoken, is the main liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church?

Ge'ez first appears in writing on the Hawulti Obelisk. It is used in worship by the Beta Israel Jewish community as well as by Ethiopian and Eritrean churches.

Which Fulani scholar declared a jihad against the Hausa kingdoms and founded the Sokoto Caliphate in the early 1800s?

Usman dan Fodio declined much of the pomp of rulership and soon passed the actual leadership of the state to his son, Muhammed Bello.

Which title was held by the queens and queen mothers of ancient Meroë?

Kandake Amanirenas attacked the Roman-held city of Syene, modern Aswan, in 25 BC, and Rome destroyed the city of Napata in retaliation.

Which city did Emperor Fasilides found in the 17th century as a fixed capital for Ethiopia's wandering court?

Gondar's royal compound, the Fasil Ghebbi, grew to hold castles, a library, a banqueting hall, stables and three churches.

Which legendary Christian priest-king did Portuguese explorers come to believe was the emperor of Ethiopia?

Prester John had first been imagined as a ruler of India. European stories of his remote Christian kingdom ran from the 12th to the 17th century.

The medieval trading kingdoms that founded Gao and Djenné are named after which region of Africa?

The Sahel's larger kingdoms emerged from about 750 AD, in the transition zone between the dry Sahara to the north and the more humid savannas to the south.

Which city did the Almoravids found in the 11th century as the capital of an empire stretching from Senegal to Spain?

Marrakesh's first major buildings were raised by the Almoravids, a Berber dynasty, and shaped the city's layout for centuries.