Dioïla

Dioïla lies in the Banico country south of the Niger, amid the cultivated savanna of the upper river basin. Local tradition attributes the founding of the town in the sixteenth century to Sountié Marico, a hunter from Nanfassa. The streams and fields around Dioïla form part of a landscape inhabited by Mande-speaking farming communities, between the upper Niger valley and the lands farther south. The name Banico is associated with the wider country around the settlement.