Top 10 African Cities That Were Once Among the Richest on Earth

In Summary:

• Several African cities accumulated immense wealth through trans-Saharan trade, gold, salt, and Indian Ocean commerce, shaping early global economic networks.
• These cities were not only rich in material terms but also functioned as major centers of learning, governance, architecture, and diplomacy, attracting scholars, merchants, and emissaries worldwide.
• Their rise and decline reflect how shifts in trade routes, colonial disruption, and global power dynamics reshaped Africa’s economic fortunes, offering important historical context for contemporary development debates.

Deep Dive!!

Thursday, 18 December 2025 – Africa’s urban history is far richer and more complex than many popular narratives suggest. Long before the rise of modern global finance hubs, several African cities stood at the center of vast trade networks, intellectual exchange, and political power, accumulating immense wealth from gold, salt, agriculture, craftsmanship, and commerce. These cities attracted merchants, scholars, and diplomats from across the known world, shaping global economic history in lasting ways.

This article revisits ten African cities that were once counted among the richest on Earth, ranking them based on historical evidence of wealth, influence, and economic reach. Drawing on archaeological records, traveler accounts, and academic research, it highlights how these cities generated prosperity, sustained large populations, and left legacies that still resonate today. In doing so, it offers a deeper appreciation of Africa’s foundational role in global urban and economic development.

10. Benin City (Kingdom of Benin, Nigeria)

Benin City was the political and economic heart of the powerful Benin Kingdom from the late first millennium through the precolonial era. Wealth flowed from highly organised trade networks in ivory, pepper, cloth and later brass and bronze craftsmanship, which produced the globally admired Benin Bronzes that signalled both material wealth and complex court culture. The city’s artisans, court regalia and commercial connections established Benin City as a major regional power and a magnet for trade across West Africa and the Gulf of Guinea.

Its prosperity was matched by sophisticated urban planning and a palatial centre that organised tribute, craft production and long-distance exchange. European contacts from the 15th century onwards documented Benin’s wealth, while archaeological and museum records trace the city’s high-volume craft exports and the royal court’s role in concentrating resources. The colonial-era disruptions and the 1897 punitive expedition broke this trajectory, but historical records confirm Benin City’s former global significance.

9. Fes / Fez (Medieval Morocco)

Fez rose to prominence from the 9th century and became a major intellectual, religious and commercial centre in the medieval Maghreb, hosting one of the oldest universities in the world, al-Qarawiyyin. Its medina was a hub for artisans, trans-Saharan and Mediterranean traders, and an institutional elite that drew scholars, craftsmen and merchants, concentrating wealth in waqf lands, guilds and madrasa patronage. Fez’s cultural and economic preeminence under the Idrisid, Almoravid and Marinid dynasties made it one of North Africa’s richest cities in the medieval period.

Commercially, Fez was linked to overland and maritime routes supplying gold, textiles and luxury goods; its madrasas and mosques symbolised accumulated wealth invested in public architecture and learning. The city’s durable prosperity rested on craft specialisation in leather, pottery, textiles, and institutional systems that channelled revenues into religious and educational endowments, shaping a wealthy urban society sustained for centuries.

8. Kilwa Kisiwani (Kilwa Sultanate, Tanzania)

Kilwa Kisiwani dominated Swahili coastal trade from roughly the 12th to 15th centuries, serving as the hub that connected interior African goldfields with markets in India, Arabia and China. Contemporary travelers like Ibn Battuta described Kilwa as wealthy and elegant; archaeological finds, Chinese porcelain, Persian glass, Indian beads, confirm intense long-distance trade and elite consumption. Controlling access to Sofala’s gold further enriched Kilwa’s merchants and rulers, making it one of the richest ports on the Indian Ocean rim.

Kilwa’s prosperity supported stone architecture, mosques, and fortified houses, visible today in the island’s ruins, and enabled a merchant class that lived and invested in cosmopolitan urban life. The city’s fortunes declined after Portuguese disruption in the 16th century, but its medieval peak remains a striking example of African maritime wealth and international commerce.

7. Great Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe)

Between the 11th and 15th centuries Great Zimbabwe functioned as a major political and economic centre whose elite controlled trade in gold, ivory, and other goods from the interior to coastal ports such as Sofala and Kilwa. The massive stone enclosures and monumental architecture testify to concentrated wealth and centralised authority; finds of glass beads, porcelain and Arab coins show direct trade links that channelled foreign wealth to the city’s rulers.

The site’s economy rested on cattle, agriculture and control over regional trade routes that linked interior mineral wealth to Indian-Ocean networks. Great Zimbabwe’s decline in the late medieval period changed southern Africa’s political geography, but at its height the city exerted economic reach across broad swathes of southern Africa and projected a level of wealth rivaling major contemporary polities.

6. Kano (Hausa Kingdom, Nigeria)

Kano became a preeminent commercial city in the trans-Saharan world, famed for its markets, textile production and leatherwork. From medieval times through the early modern period Kano’s Kurmi Market and artisan quarters connected Sahelian trade, salt, gold and horses, with North Africa; travellers and chronicles praised its wealth, large walls and productive industries. The city’s institutional structures, including guilds and market regulation, concentrated wealth and sustained durable urban prosperity.

Kano’s manufacturing, especially leather and cloth, and its strategic role as a trade funnel made it both a regional manufacturing hub and a revenue source for ruling elites. Periods of political reform and trade expansion under rulers like Rumfa bolstered the city’s riches, embedding Kano among West Africa’s most prosperous urban centres for centuries.

5. Timbuktu (Mali)

By the 14th–16th centuries Timbuktu was synonymous with wealth and scholarship, a trans-Saharan entrepôt where gold, salt and scholars flowed. The city’s mosques and madrasas, Djinguereber, Sankore, attracted students and merchants, while Mansa Musa’s 14th-century pilgrimage and the Mali Empire’s gold reserves crystallised the perception of exceptional riches. Contemporary chronicles and later scholarship record Timbuktu as a major node for commerce, Islamic learning and manuscript production.

Timbuktu’s prosperity rested on its position between West African goldfields and North African markets; its manuscript collections and scholarly networks reinforced elite status and intangible cultural capital. Even after political shifts, the city’s historical accumulation of wealth and learning remained emblematic of West African urban splendour.

4. Marrakesh (Marrakech, Morocco)

Founded in the 11th century, Marrakesh became the Almoravid and later Almohad empires’ imperial capital, a political and commercial powerhouse whose wealth came from agriculture, caravan trade and craft production. The city’s palaces, mosques and the bustling Jemaa el-Fnaa square reflected concentrated urban prosperity, while royal patronage financed monumental architecture and a flourishing artisan economy. UNESCO and historical sources place Marrakesh among North Africa’s richest medieval cities.

Marrakesh’s role as an imperial hub meant it collected tribute and trade taxes from wide hinterlands, translating rural surpluses into urban investment. The city’s markets and artisanal specialisations attracted merchants across the Maghreb and into Iberia, generating wealth that supported its long-term cultural and political centrality.

3. Alexandria (Hellenistic and Roman Egypt)

Founded by Alexander the Great and expanded under the Ptolemies, Alexandria quickly became the Mediterranean’s commercial and cultural powerhouse. The famous Library and the Mouseion were intellectual magnets, while the city’s harbour and lighthouse (Pharos) made it a must-call port for trade between Europe, the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. Alexandria’s cosmopolitan merchant class and state-backed grain exports from the Nile Delta made it extraordinarily wealthy in antiquity.

State patronage, naval capacity and control of grain shipments gave Alexandria leverage in Mediterranean politics and a steady stream of revenue. Its role as a trade entrepôt and cultural capital sustained concentrations of wealth that made it rival the great cities of the ancient world in both material prosperity and intellectual influence.

2. Aksum / Axum (Kingdom of Aksum, Ethiopia)

Axum was a major Red Sea trading capital from antiquity into the early medieval period, trading ivory, gold, incense and textiles between Africa, Arabia and the Roman world. The kingdom issued its own coinage, commanded strategic ports such as Adulis, and exercised influence across the southern Red Sea, features that signal high economic capacity and regional wealth. UNESCO and classical sources describe Axum as a major early power with deep commercial ties.

Aksum’s wealth underwrote monumental architecture, stelae, palaces and churches, and enabled political reach into South Arabia. Its combination of maritime trade, agricultural surplus and control of caravan routes made Axum one of the great economic centres of late antiquity on the African side of global commerce.

1. Cairo (Fatimid and Mamluk Cairo, Egypt)

Cairo, especially under the Fatimid and later Mamluk regimes, was arguably Africa’s richest city for many centuries. Founded as a Fatimid capital in the 10th century and growing under successive dynasties, Cairo controlled Nile-based grain exports, Levantine and Red Sea trade routes, and served as a banking and manufacturing centre. The city’s population, markets, monumental architecture and fiscal systems made it a primary nexus of wealth and political power in the medieval Islamic world.

Mamluk Cairo in particular was a commercial and cultural powerhouse between the 13th and 16th centuries, drawing long-distance merchants and financing states across the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean circuits. Its artisanal guilds, waqf endowments and strategic geography converted agricultural surpluses and trade levies into durable urban opulence, placing Cairo at the top of Africa’s historic wealth rankings.

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