Urbanization as a social process started in Africa long before the arrival of the Arabs or Europeans on the continent (Coquery-Vidrovitch, 1991; Peel, 1980). Around 320 B.C., northeast Africa witnessed the growth of urban centers when Upper and Lower Egypt merged to promote the development “of a brilliant urban civilization” (Davidson, 1991b, p. 14). Jenné-Jeno, near present day Jenne, was established by the very fertile river banks of the Bani and Niger rivers around the year 250 B.C. It is the first known city in sub-Saharan Africa and among the oldest known in the world. As Haskins and Benson (1998) have pointed out:
Established – probably by herders and fishermen – as a small group of round mud huts around 250 B.C., by A.D. 800 Jenne-Jeno was a cosmopolitan center of some ten thousand people, surrounded by a massive mud-brick wall of some ten feet wide and thirteen or more feet in height.
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Ofori-Attah, K.D. (2007). Urbanization and Schooling in Africa: Trends, Issues, and Challenges from Ghana during the Colonial Era. In: Pink, W.T., Noblit, G.W. (eds) International Handbook of Urban Education. Springer International Handbooks of Education, vol 19. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-5199-9_2
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