ADAMAWA, a country of West Africa, which lies roughly between 6° and i i ° N., and i i° and 15° E., about midway between the Bight of Biafra and Lake Chad. The region is watered by the Benue, a tributary of the Niger. Another stream, the Yedseram, flows north-east of Lake Chad. The most fertile parts of the country are the plains near the Benue, about 800f t. above the sea. South and east of the river a much dissected plateau rises to an elevation of i,600ft. Mount Alantika (6,000ft.), about 25m. south-south-east of Yola, is a conspicuous granite mass. The coun try, which is very fertile and covered with luxuriant vegetation, has many villages and a considerable population. Durra, ground nuts, yams and cotton are the principal products, and the palm and banana abound. Elephants are numerous and ivory is ex ported. In the eastern part of the country the rhinoceros is met with, and the rivers swarm with crocodiles.
Adamawa is named after a Fula emir, Adama, who in the early years of the 19th century conquered the country. To the Hausa and Bornuese it was previously known as Fumbina (or Southland). The inhabitants are mainly pure negroes such as the Durra, Batta and Dekka, speaking different languages, and all fetish-worshippers. Slave-trading was still active among them in the early years of the loth century. The Fula (q.v.), who first came into the country about the 15th century as nomad herds men, are found chiefly in the valleys, the pagan tribes holding the mountainous districts. There are also in the country numbers of Hausa, who are chiefly traders, as well as Arabs and Kanuri from Bornu. The exploration of the region during the 19th century was mostly in the hands of the Germans. The emir of Yola, in the period of Fula lordship, claimed rights of suzerainty over the whole of Adamawa, but the country, since the subjection of the Fula (c. 1900), has consisted of a number of small states under the control of the British, Germans and French. It is now administered, partly under French Equatorial Africa, and partly under the British Protectorate of Nigeria. Garua on the Upper Benue and Ngaundere are the chief towns.
See Heinrich Barth, Travels in North and Central Africa (new edit., 189o) ; S. Passarge, Adamawa (Berlin, 1895). See also FRENCH