Kankan

Kankan had different names before being dubbed Kankan during Arafan Kabine's rule as patriarch, which means 'the defenses' (or 'God protect our city from all the attacks'), due to successives attacks by the unfaithful people. But there are other terms which says that during the Kaba's negotiation of the place from Conde's, they were informed to install where the people made the Kankan (A fixed wood that Mandes often used as a door), and there were no other human settlement between Makonon and Diankana (30 km) during this moment. The other terms are used by the griots, that there were too much of the Kankan-Kissè (an arborescent name) in to the area that Kankan settled in, so the Conde's told the Kaba to install this place, which made the Kaba to rename it as Kankan. Those terms have no sources and the speakers didn't know anything about Kankan's history.

According to oral histories, Kankan was founded in 1690 by Daouda Kaba, whose ancestors had come from Diafounou, in what is now Mali, a few decades earlier. His uncle Fodemoudou Conde, chief of the nearby village Makonon, gave Kaba the land on the banks of the Milo river near where the bridge is today, which was open bush. The hamlet was originally called Fadou (place of plenty), then Kaourou (prosperous place), then Nabaya (place of welcome). Another tradition holds that Kankan was founded in the mid 17th century by Dyula traders of the Sarif and Sanyo families. By the 18th century it was an important religious center under the great marabout and Islamic scholar Alfa Kaabinè Kaba as well as a center of trade linking the coast, the kola nut growing regions, and the Niger river valley to the north. During this period Kankan was the capital of the Bate Empire. …

The city is located on the Milo River, a tributary of the Niger River.