Zinder

Zinder was a sultanate before it was a province, and the old walled quarter called the Birni still holds the sultan's palace along with a maze of lanes built for a scale of trade the town no longer sees. The Zengou quarter runs a market that supplies the whole surrounding region regardless of the wider country's troubles. Decorated house facades survive in patches through the old town, worked into patterns by masons whose trade has mostly died out elsewhere. It remains a real working city rather than a backdrop, and its own security situation is calmer than the capital's.