Trade and Movement Across the Sahara and Sahel

Volume IV of the tables.data archive traces the material history of trans-Saharan and Sahelian trade from the earliest caravan economies through colonial disruption to the contemporary smuggling and migration corridors that now define the region's informal economy. Sources span foundational economic history monographs, colonial archival studies, border-economy fieldwork, and current institutional data on illicit flows and displacement. The volume is in active extraction, with materials covering medieval commodity flows (gold, salt, kola, slaves, textiles), the Hausa-Fulani-Tuareg merchant network, the colonial restructuring of West African trade, and the present-day Agadez as the direct descendant of historical trans-Saharan routes.

Thirteen centuries of trade across the Sahara and Sahel featuring, camel caravan and smuggling hubs — in structured tables.