Niger

Niger is a big country in Africa.

It has no sea. The north is a hot, sandy desert. A river flows in the south. The capital city is Niamey.

Niger is a big country in West Africa with no coast. It takes its name from the Niger River, and the name comes from a Tamashek phrase meaning river among rivers.

Niger has three zones. The north is desert, the middle is drier grassland where herders raise animals, and the south is where most farming happens and where most people live. Niger is one of the hottest places in the world. About 27.9 million people lived there in 2025, and the capital is Niamey, on the Niger River.

Niger is bounded by Algeria and Libya to the north, Chad to the east, Nigeria and Benin to the south, and Burkina Faso and Mali to the west. It stretches about 1,200 km north to south and 1,460 km east to west. Rainfall increases southward, so the land falls into a northern desert zone, a central zone of nomadic herding and a cultivated southern zone, where most people, settled and nomadic, live.

Britannica describes Niger's birth and population growth rates as among the highest in the world, and about half the population is under 15. The World Bank counted 27,917,831 people in 2025. Only about one-fifth of people live in towns. Since a military coup on July 26, 2023, a transitional military government has ruled; a charter promulgated in March 2025 set out a five-year transition, with Gen. Abdourahamane Tchiani as president.

Niamey is the biggest city.

It sits next to a big river. In Zinder, houses are made of mud and painted with patterns. Agadez has a very tall mud tower.

Niamey, the capital, stands on the Niger River and has grown quickly. Zinder is older: it was Niger's capital until 1926, and it is known for skilled leatherworkers and dyers. Its old town has mud houses decorated with painted patterns. Maradi, near the border with Nigeria, sits in a peanut-growing region.

Far to the north, Agadez has been called the gateway to the desert. From the 1400s it was a meeting place for caravans crossing the Sahara. Its Grand Mosque has a minaret made entirely of mudbrick, the tallest mudbrick minaret ever built.

Britannica lists four principal towns. Niamey, the capital, has grown rapidly and has a cosmopolitan, partly transient population. Zinder (Damagaram), an older Hausa town, was the capital until 1926 and is known for leatherworkers and dyers; petroleum is refined there. Maradi lies in the peanut-growing heart of the south near Nigeria, and Tahoua, on the desert edge, is a large livestock market. Agadez grew sharply after uranium was discovered nearby.

UNESCO inscribed the historic center of Agadez in 2013. It dates from the 15th and 16th centuries, when the Sultanate of Aïr settled there and Tuareg encampments became a town; the street plan from that time is still followed. Its mudbrick architecture is specific to the Aïr region, and the Grand Mosque's minaret is the tallest ever built in mudbrick. About 20,000 people live in the old town, and the traditional sultanate still functions.

Niger is very hot.

The Sahara Desert has big sand dunes and rocky mountains. In the south, more rain falls. There, farmers can grow crops.

The Sahara covers northern Niger, with the rocky Aïr Mountains and the huge sandy Ténéré desert. Farther south, in the Sahel, rain falls for a short season and grass grows for animals to eat. The south gets the most rain, enough for farming.

The Niger River crosses about 560 kilometers of the southwest, and Niger has part of Lake Chad in the far southeast. In May, the hottest month, afternoons reach about 45 °C at Agadez. On winter nights in the desert, it can drop to freezing.

Arid highlands dominate the north: the Aïr Massif, an extension of Algeria's Ahaggar, runs north to south through central Niger in separate mountain blocks, and UNESCO describes the massifs rising to about 2,000 m above the Ténéré, an expanse of shifting dunes and stony plain. High plateaus such as Djado link the Ahaggar to the Tibesti. In the south lie plateaus cut by dallol and gulbi, dry valleys of ancient rivers; about 5,000–6,000 years ago an older river system let farmers, fishers and herders live in the Aïr.

The Niger River crosses about 560 km (350 miles) of the southwest and floods past Niamey only in January and February; Niger holds part of Lake Chad in the east. May afternoons reach 42 °C at Nguigmi and 45 °C at Bilma and Agadez, while desert nights in January may fall to freezing. The 10-inch (about 250 mm) rainfall line from Tahoua to Gouré marks the northern limit of herding, and rainfall varies widely from year to year, threatening crops.

Niger has the last wild giraffes of West Africa.

Fennec foxes with huge ears live in the desert. Elephants live in a park in the south. Camels carry loads across the desert.

Niger is home to the last West African giraffes. By the mid-1990s only 49 were left, but with protection there are now almost 670, living near the capital, Niamey, in an area called the Giraffe Zone.

In the desert, the Aïr and Ténéré reserves protect desert antelopes such as the dorcas gazelle, and small desert foxes such as the fennec. In the far southwest, W National Park, named for the W-shaped bends of the Niger River, has elephants, buffalo and hippos. Herders raise dromedary camels, goats, sheep and cattle.

The Giraffe Conservation Foundation reports that West African giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis peralta), once found from Nigeria to Senegal, fell to 49 animals in Niger by the mid-1990s; under government protection they have rebounded to almost 670, living alongside villagers on communal land, the Giraffe Zone, near Niamey. Between 2018 and 2022, twelve were moved to Gadabedji Biosphere Reserve to start a second population.

The Aïr and Ténéré Natural Reserves, 7,736,000 ha, are the last bastion of Saharo-Sahelian wildlife in Niger, with habitat for threatened desert antelopes and carnivores such as the fennec fox; UNESCO has listed them as in danger since 1992. In the south, W National Park is part of the W-Arly-Pendjari Complex shared with Benin and Burkina Faso, which holds 85 percent of West Africa's savanna elephants. Britannica notes that much of the cultivated south's wildlife has partially disappeared, with hippos and crocodiles along the Niger.

About 27.9 million people live in Niger.

Many speak Hausa. Many families farm millet and sorghum. Some families travel with their animals to find grass and water.

Many peoples live in Niger. The Hausa are the largest group, and many people understand the Hausa language. The Songhai-Zarma live in the southwest, the Kanuri in the east, and the Fulani and the Tuareg are herders who move with their animals. The Tuareg write their language, Tamashek, in an alphabet called tifinagh.

In the south, many families farm millet and sorghum, and rice grows along the Niger River. Herders raise cattle, goats, sheep and camels. Each August and September, Fulani and Tuareg herders gather near In Gall so their animals can lick the salty soil.

Britannica describes five main language groups: Hausa, the largest, spoken or understood by a large share of people; Songhai, with its Zarma and Dendi dialects; Fula, the Fulani language; Tamashek, the Tuareg language, with its own tifinagh script; and Kanuri. Under the 2025 Charter of the Refoundation, Hausa is the national language and French and English are working languages. Some four-fifths of people follow Sunni Islam, and Agadez has one of the oldest Arabic schools in Africa.

Sedentary Hausa, Songhai-Zarma and Kanuri farm millet, sorghum, rice, corn, peanuts and cotton; Buduma and Sorko fish Lake Chad and the Niger. Fulani herders, who rely above all on milk, and Tuareg herders, who live on meat and dates, move north in the rainy season and meet near In Gall in August and September for the salty soils. Livestock is a major export, and Niger ranks among the world's top ten uranium producers, from mines in the Aïr region such as Arlit.