Local history
The minaret that outlived its city walls
Gobarau has stood in Katsina since the fourteenth century, when the town was a stop on the scholars' road between Timbuktu and Cairo.
North-West
Katsina
Katsina State
12.9908° N, 7.6018° E
A scholarly city on the Niger border, with a minaret older than the printing press.
About this place
Katsina was the intellectual centre of Hausaland before Kano overtook it commercially, and something of that seriousness remains. The Gobarau minaret has stood since the fourteenth century, when the city was a stop for scholars travelling between Timbuktu and Cairo. The border with Niger is thirty miles north, and the two sides of it have always been one economy.
Everything from Katsina
1 story, newest first.
History in Katsina
Local history
The minaret that outlived its city walls
Gobarau has stood in Katsina since the fourteenth century, when the town was a stop on the scholars' road between Timbuktu and Cairo.
Where to go next
Editorial adjacency rather than distance — somewhere it makes sense to go from here.
