Kita, Mali

Kita is a town and urban commune in western Mali. The town is the capital of the Kita Cercle in the Kayes Region. It lies on the eastern slope of Mount Kita (Bambara: "Kita-kulu"), known for its caves and rock paintings. Today, the town is known for its music, its annual Roman Catholic pilgrimage and its role as a processing center for the surrounding cotton- and peanut-growing region. Kita lies on the Dakar-Niger Railway and is the largest transit hub between Bamako (112 miles) and Kayes (205 miles). In the 2009 census the urban commune had a population of 48,947.[1]

Kita
Commune and town
Kita
Location in Mali
Coordinates: 13°2′20″N 9°29′15″W
Country Mali
RegionKayes Region
CercleKita Cercle
Elevation
330 m (1,080 ft)
Population
 (2009 census)[1]
 • Total48,957

In November 1955, Kita became a commune of average exercise. On March 2, 1966, Kita became a commune of full exercise. The town grew in the 1990s around the cotton industry, but this has since declined.

A fictionalized version of Kita features as the setting for Malian author Massa Makan Diabaté's "Kouta Trilogy" (Le lieutenant de Kouta, Le coiffeur de Kouta, and Le boucher de Kouta).[2]

Notable residents

See also

References
  1. Resultats Provisoires RGPH 2009 (Région de Kayes) (PDF) (in French), République de Mali: Institut National de la Statistique, archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-09-19.
  2. Drame, Kandioura. "Diabaté, Massa Makan." The Encyclopedia of African Literatures. Ed. Simon Gikandi. p. 195.
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