ABSTRACT
African society, economics, and environment create patterns of settlement and agricultural land use that are characteristic of the continent south of the Sahara, with a low density of population and dispersed settlement patterns and with large areas of potential agricultural and pastoral lands that are unavailable because of eradicable diseases. The distribution of the human population in Niger stems from both physical and human factors. Under the conditions of seasonal and highly variable precipitation, human settlement does not occur in a uniform fashion like a wave sweeping across a beach. As in many places in Africa, the conditions for settlement in Maradi formed initially out of conflicts. The village of Guidan Wari lies on the western edge of Mayahi arrondissement. Prior to the era of conquest, which lasted until the end of the nineteenth century, the land uses of the Sahelian zone were mainly pastoral, as is still evidenced by modern maps of livestock corridors.
