Kankan

Kankan stands on the Milo River, a tributary of the Niger, in the savanna country of Upper Guinea. Its location made it a meeting place for merchants travelling between the Niger valley, the forest country that produced kola nuts, and the Atlantic coast. The town was also a centre of Islamic learning, with scholars and religious families playing a prominent part in its life.

The Kaba family established Kankan on the Milo, and by the eighteenth century it had grown into an important trading and religious centre. The scholar Alfa Kabiné Kaba was among the figures associated with its renown. Kankan formed the centre of Baté, a group of Maninka communities whose merchants and clerics connected the town to a much wider West African world.