Minignan

Minignan Maninian
Town, sub-prefecture, and commune
Minignan Location in Ivory Coast
Coordinates: CI 10°0′N 7°50′W / 10.000°N 7.833°WCoordinates: CI 10°0′N 7°50′W / 10.000°N 7.833°W
Country	Ivory Coast
District	Denguélé
Region	Folon
Department	Minignan
Population (2014)[1]
• Total	14,521
Time zone	GMT (UTC+0)

Minignan (also spelled Maninian) is a town in north-western Ivory Coast. It is a sub-prefecture of and the seat of Minignan Department. It is also a commune and the seat of Folon Region in Denguélé District.

History

The French explorer René Caillié stopped at Minignan in 1827 on his journey from Boké, in present-day Guinea, to Timbuktu in Mali. He was travelling with a caravan transporting kola nuts to Djenné. He described the village in his book Travels through Central Africa to Timbuctoo.

We halted towards two o'clock at Manegnan [Minignan], a village inhabited by Bambaras; it contains about eight or nine hundred inhabitants; the natives call this part of the country Foulou, and like the Wassoulos they speak the Mandingo language; I did not perceive that they had any particular dialect. They are idolaters, or rather, they are without any religion; their food and clothes are like those of the inhabitants of Wassoulo; and they are equally dirty.^[2][3]

References

1. "Côte d'Ivoire". geohive.com. Retrieved 7 December 2015.
2. Caillié, René (1830). Travels through Central Africa to Timbuctoo; and across the Great Desert, to Morocco, performed in the years 1824-1828 (Volume 1). London: Colburn & Bentley. pp. 307–308.
3. Quella-Villéger, Alain (2012). René Caillié, l'Africain : une vie d'explorateur, 1799-1838 (in French). Anglet, France: Aubéron. p. 76. ISBN 978-2-84498-137-0.