The city of Niamey was developed by French colonists in Niger from a cluster of villages on the Niger River. These villages were settled around the early nineteenth century by Hausa, Songhai, and Zarma people on the river's left bank and Fula people on the right bank. A series of French expeditions invaded the area in the 1890s, with the first record of Niamey in 1897. Captain established a French post on the plateau of the left bank in 1901. The territorial capital moved from Zinder to Niamey in 1903 but moved back in 1911 after debate among officials. Niamey did not see widespread development before becoming the capital again in 1926. Niamey then became Niger's main centre of economic development. The first urban plan in 1930 divided the city into European and indigenous areas. After a population increase caused by the 1931 Niger famine, further urban planning involved hygiene initiatives and relocation of existing settlements. The administration used forced labour for development until 1946, the same year Niger became an overseas territory of France.
Niamey held the first municipal elections in Niger in 1956, electing as mayor the pro-independence trade unionist Djibo Bakary. Niger gained independence in 1960, after which Niamey saw further development under President Hamani Diori, and urban plans ended racial segregation of neighbourhoods amid population growth. The opening of the Kennedy Bridge in 1970 enabled development on the right bank of the river. A boom in the uranium industry of Niger in the 1970s and 1980s brought economic and architectural growth to Niamey, alongside immigrants displaced by droughts. This led to a population increase and urban sprawl. Protests in Niamey following the 1990 Kennedy Bridge massacre contributed to the democratisation of Niger. The era of democratisation saw an economic decline in Niamey as well as an increase in private media and an Islamic revival. In the 1990s and 2000s, Niamey underwent reorganisation and decentralisation, followed by recentralisation in 2011. The 2010s saw urban development in Niamey including the project of President Mahamadou Issoufou.
Background and foundation
As the Sahelian kingdoms fought for control over the Sahel, the Niamey area was a buffer zone whose sociopolitical instability caused Trans-Saharan trade routes to divert around it. Though the Sahelian kingdoms were urbanised, the Niamey area, situated between these kingdoms, was not. Despite its lack of activity, this area had a diverse population. Late-sixteenth-century residents included Zarma and other Songhai refugees from the Moroccan invasion of the Songhai Empire, Hausa-speaking Maouri hunters who migrated westward from the Dogondoutchi area, and the regionally dominant Fula people. These ethnic groups comprise the population of modern Niamey. Archaeological evidence of bloomery along the Niger River indicates that metalworking may have returned to the Niamey area around this time, having become absent around the late 14th century.
The Zarma villages of and were founded on the left bank of the Niger River in the sixteenth century. The two villages' land claims were divided by the gully of . Villages sprouted along Gounti Yéna, on the site of modern Niamey, around the early nineteenth century. The Hausa village of , the Zarma village of , and the Songhai fishing village of were on the left bank, while the Fula villages of , , and were on the right bank. To the east, the village of —now part of the urban agglomeration of Niamey—was inhabited by pastoralists of the Zarma, Fula, and Kurtey Songhai ethnic groups.
Oral histories differ on the chronology of the settlement of Niamey and on the etymology of the name Niamey, as each of the city's original ethnic groups believes its village was settled first: The Maouri believe that they founded the city after a property dispute with the Fula villagers of Bitinkodji drove them away from the nearby river island of . They settled next to a landmark tree called (or ), which they believe was magical; the former site of the tree is now the Hotel Gaweye. Thus, the Maouri say the city's etymology is place of the Gna, or . The Zarma believe that the founder was a Kallé Zarma chief from named Kouri Mali, who left the Zarmaganda region due to a dispute over his family's land. The villagers of Goudel gave him land between and . The Zarma say the city's name is derived from his exclamation of "", meaning "clear out here" or "settle here". Another Zarma etymology says that the name means "mother's riverbank", referring to the site where a woman received water. The Songhai believe that the founders were two fishermen from Gao who settled on the left bank after being gifted the river island of Yama Gungu—which remains under Songhai ownership—out of gratitude by the local Fula herders. Additionally, historian Abdourahmane Idrissa proposes an etymology from a Zarma or Songhai word meaning "intermingling".
Colonial era French invasion and military rule
France laid claim to Niger during the Scramble for Africa, by which time western Niger had been weakened by local conflicts. According to anthropologist Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan, no rulers in the region had sustained rule over more than five villages in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The closest polity to Niamey had been the Sokoto Caliphate. The lack of a large local power facilitated the French invasion of Niger, which completed the expansion of French West Africa, a territory administered from Dakar. French officials entered Niger in 1891, when the expedition of Parfait-Louis Monteil came to Say, a chiefdom twenty kilometers downriver of Niamey; several earlier European expeditions had traversed the area. The first European mention of Niamey was by the 1897 expedition of . Anthropologist recorded an account by a resident of 1890s Niamey, Djibo Salifou, who recalled an earlier visit by a European boat, identified as the expedition of . The second record of Niamey was by the Voulet–Chanoine Mission of 1899, which aimed to establish French presence beyond Say. This expedition burned down Niamey due to the hostility of its inhabitants, who had expected a peaceful trading mission.
France established the () in 1900 and established garrisons in the territory of Niger. French settlers came to Niamey in 1901 after the expedition of . That year, , a captain overseeing the road between Niger and Chad, founded the first French military post in Niger. The location was chosen for its geography—its high ground lowered the risk of flooding and mosquitoes, while its location above a river bend enabled creation of a port to service administrators traveling between Zinder and Timbuktu. The river connected the city to Bamako and the rest of French West Africa, and the administration thought the location was good for securing control over the inland part of the territory. Salaman was the first to refer to the whole cluster of villages as Niamey, and he rented a house in Niamey. He named Niamey the capital of the cercle of Djerma in 1903. Niamey's residents viewed him as a bringer of peace and development, and the city became known in Hausa as "", meaning "Captain Salaman's city". French settlement of Niamey began on an empty plateau on the left bank, in an area that would later become the of . This neighbourhood was developed under Salaman's administration, with a governor's office, post office, and treasury.
Zinder, in eastern Niger, became the territorial capital in 1901. The capital moved to Niamey in 1903, after a Tuareg revolt had weakened the eastern part of the territory. The French government organised a large area surrounding the capital into the Canton of Niamey. The first chief of the canton was a commoner named Bagniou, who had worked as a guide for the Voulet–Chanoine Mission, which made him locally unpopular. The new canton included several former chiefdoms, including the Songhai chiefdom of Karma, which led to a dispute with the leader of Karma. To make Niamey more powerful than other towns in the area, Salaman introduced incentives such as suspending taxation and forced labour for the town's residents, while increasing taxation for other towns. He also offered free land, given by the villagers of Kalley, and established a livestock market. These caused Niamey's population to increase.
The Third Military Territory of Niger was declared on 26 December 1904, spanning to Lake Chad in the east and farther than Timbuktu in the west. Niamey, which had a population of about 1,800, became its capital. The capital was intended to be temporary, and its location was debated, so Niamey did not become a focus of development. Niamey's city limits were first drawn in 1905. As isolated rebellions continued against colonial rule, the garrison in Niamey quelled an attack in January 1906 by rebels from Karma and Boubon, led by the leader of Karma, Oumarou. The capital received reinforcements from other posts before the rebels could capture it. In 1908, the Canton of Niamey was replaced by the re-established Canton of Karma. Colonial officials were divided between supporting Zinder or Niamey as the capital, with supporters of Zinder arguing that its significance as a pre-colonial capital would strengthen political legitimacy. The capital moved back to Zinder in 1911, after violence in the eastern region had subsided and reorganisation had drawn Niamey further away from the center of the territory. From that year, Niamey's population began to decline from a peak of 3,000. During the First World War, the city's colonial infrastructure fell into disrepair. Niamey operated as a small stopping post for the military before being re-established as the capital.
Colony of Niger and development of capital
The Colony of Niger was founded in 1922, with Jules Brévié as its governor. In 1925, one of the colony's seven military companies moved from Tanout to Niamey. The French chose to move the capital back to Niamey its distance to French-controlled ports, including Dakar, was lower than Zinder, which was closer to Kano, in the British territory of Nigeria. Although Niamey was isolated from most of the colony, it was chosen for its proximity to French Dahomey, its more comfortable climate, and its location on the Niger River valley, which officials believed was the only place suitable for commercial agriculture. The official reason for the move was that Zinder had insufficient potable water. Another major factor was that Niamey had no ruling ethnic group that could form a resistance to French rule, as the Hausa population of Zinder had done. Brévié made Niamey the capital on 28 December 1926, by which time the city had 3,142 inhabitants. Construction of the new capital began the year prior, mostly using forced labourers from neighbouring colonies. Niamey's first major administrative buildings were then built, including the governor's palace, a hospital, public housing, and the , the first market on the plateau of Niamey, which opened in 1929 as an incentive for people to move away from the riverbank.