The Endangered Architectural Heritage of Sub-Saharan Africa: Earthen Cities Under Threat

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A mud building keeps one rule: maintain it or lose it. That rule has governed the Sahel for centuries, and it now decides the fate of Africa’s earthen cities. On 12 June 2025, thousands of people in Djenné, Mali, carried buckets of wet earth to the Great Mosque and plastered its walls by hand before the rains arrived. They repeat the ritual every year because, without it, the building falls into disrepair.

Three forces now press on these cities at once: armed conflict, a changing climate and institutional neglect. Each works differently. All three break the same chain: the chain of people who keep mud buildings alive.

Djenné shows what an earthen city looks like when the chain holds. People have lived there since 250 BC. The Old Towns grew into a market centre and a link in the trans-Saharan gold trade, and UNESCO inscribed them on the World Heritage List in 1988.

The Great Mosque anchors the town. Builders first erected it in the 13th century and rebuilt it in 1907, and UNESCO considers it the world’s largest earthen structure. Each year, residents coat it with banco, an earth-and-water plaster that locals mix with rice bran, shea butter and baobab powder. Women carry the water. Men and boys climb the walls. The chief mason inspects the finish.

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The story runs in a clear line. Djenné’s masons and neighbourhood teams carried the tradition. It mattered because the mosque, a historic centre of Islamic learning, needs a fresh layer every year before the rains start in June. Today, conflict has changed the picture. The Associated Press reported in 2024 that the replastering once drew tens of thousands of tourists each year, and Moussa Moriba Diakité, head of Djenné’s cultural mission, said insecurity has threatened the event.

How War Hits Earthen Cities Hardest

Conflict does not just damage earthen buildings. It cuts the people who repair them off from the walls. Armed groups destroyed 14 of Timbuktu’s 16 World Heritage mausoleums in 2012 and levelled the Al Farouk monument. In 2016, the International Criminal Court convicted Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi for directing the attacks. UNESCO describes the rebuilding as one of the first cases where destroying heritage was prosecuted as a war crime.

Local masons then rebuilt the shrines. The team consulted historians, traditional elders and old photographs so that each new mausoleum matched the one it replaced, and Mali formally received the rebuilt shrines in February 2016.

Djenné has not escaped. On 13 July 2016, the World Heritage Committee placed the Old Towns on the List of World Heritage in Danger because insecurity blocked protective measures. In 2023, UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre and its advisory bodies again recommended keeping the site on that list. They also welcomed a capacity-building programme led by CRAterre-ENSAG with Mali’s National Directorate of Cultural Heritage, covering Djenné, Timbuktu and the Tomb of Askia.

The Climate Test for Earthen Cities

Heavy rain is the oldest enemy of mud walls, and it is getting less predictable. CRAterre, the French earthen-construction research centre, reports that earthen architecture accounts for 60% of West Africa’s cultural heritage on the World Heritage List. Flooding, drought, and erosion threaten those buildings and the transmission of the building skills themselves, weakening the local earthen construction trade.

Funders have started to respond. The ALIPH Foundation backs a USD 1,543,540 CRAterre project, running from 2025 to 2028, that tests climate-adaptive conservation at Sudanese-style mosques in Côte d’Ivoire, Asante traditional buildings in Ghana and the impluvium house of the Bandial Kingdom in Senegal.

ICOMOS, the International Council on Monuments and Sites, identifies the gap: many African heritage sites lack clear adaptation policies and preventive risk management. In May 2026, ICOMOS trained 25 early and mid-career heritage professionals from 16 African countries at the Royal Court of Tiébélé in Burkina Faso, a site exposed to flooding and drought.

The stakes reach well beyond Mali. Agadez, in Niger, grew in the 15th and 16th centuries under the Sultanate of Aïr. UNESCO inscribed its historic centre in 2013. About 20,000 people still live there in 11 quarters of earthen houses, and a 27-metre mud-brick minaret rises above them, which UNESCO describes as the world’s highest such structure. Agadez is a working city, not a museum. UNESCO notes that its ancestral commercial and handicraft traditions are still practised today, so losing building skills would hit a living neighbourhood rather than a monument.

What Must Change

The pattern repeats from Djenné to Timbuktu to Kano. Recognition comes first, emergency money second, and routine upkeep last. That order is backwards. We take three positions. First, governments should recognise masons’ guilds and neighbourhood teams as paid custodians, not volunteers. Second, funders should pay for annual maintenance before disaster strikes, because the $500,000 rebuilding bill in Timbuktu arrived only after the damage was done. Third, heritage agencies should train a new generation in climate-adaptive repair using local earth, so that skills survive the next flood season.

The seven countries named in this article, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Senegal, span the Sahel and the Guinea coast, and they share the same structural gap. A regional answer fits the evidence. ICOMOS’s May 2026 course already brought professionals from 16 countries to a single training courtyard in Burkina Faso. Masons and conservators can exchange methods across borders far faster than any single ministry can write policy.

Tourism can carry part of the cost, but only if the money reaches the right hands. The Djenné replastering once drew tens of thousands of tourists each year, according to the Associated Press in 2024, and insecurity has since shrunk that income. Heritage tourism is therefore both a casualty of conflict and a possible source of recovery. Cultural ministries in Bamako, Niamey and Abuja can plan for that return now. They can reserve a share of site revenue for local maintenance teams, publish visitor codes that protect fragile walls, and license guides trained alongside masons. No responsible operator should push visitors into unsafe areas, but planning cannot wait for conditions to improve.

Travellers also hold a role. Check current government travel advice before planning any trip to Mali or Niger, and favour operators who employ local masons and guides. Visitor spending that reaches the people who plaster the walls does more for these cities than a photograph ever will.

The question is no longer whether Africa can rebuild its earthen cities after they fall. Timbuktu answered that. The question is whether anyone will pay for the quiet, annual work that stops them falling at all. Africa does not stop at one city. Read more Rex Clarke Adventures heritage and culture features and follow the stories other travel platforms skip. 

 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and Answers 

What are earthen cities?

Earthen cities are towns built mainly from sun-dried mud brick and earth plaster. Djenné and Timbuktu in Mali, Agadez in Niger and the walls of Kano in Nigeria are well-known examples. Their buildings need regular replastering to survive.

Why does the Great Mosque of Djenné need replastering every year?

Earth plasters erode in the rain. Each year, before the rainy season begins in June, residents apply a fresh layer, or the building falls into disrepair. The task also works as a community festival, called the crépissage.

What happened to Timbuktu’s mausoleums?

Armed groups destroyed 14 of the 16 World Heritage mausoleums in 2012. Local masons rebuilt them with UNESCO’s support, and the shrines reopened to the public three years after the attacks. The International Criminal Court convicted Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi in 2016 over the destruction.

Is climate change a threat to Africa’s earthen architecture?

Yes. CRAterre and ICOMOS identify flooding, drought and erosion as major risks, and ICOMOS notes that many African sites lack clear adaptation policies. Projects in West Africa and training in Burkina Faso aim to build climate-resilient conservation skills.

Can travellers visit Djenné, Timbuktu or Agadez?

Conditions change. UNESCO keeps the Old Towns of Djenné on its List of World Heritage in Danger because of insecurity. Check your government’s current travel advice before planning any trip, and book operators who employ local guides and masons.