Tourist Fun Spots in Adamawa State: Land of Beauty

Adamawa State’s ‘land of beauty’ slogan is no lie. The state is essentially a picturesque mountainous land transversed by river valleys of Benue, Gongola, and Yedsarem.
It is one of the largest states in Nigeria and shares it’s northwest and Southwest border with Borno, Gombe, and Taraba states respectively. Its eastern border also forms the national eastern border with Cameroon.

Adamawa State is noted for its rich cultural heritage reflected in its history, craftmanship, music, dance, dress patterns, and hospitality. Festivals such as Njuwa Fishing Festival and the Yinagu Fishing Festival attract people all over from March through May each year.

Some of its historical places of interest include:

Sukur World Cultural Heritage Sites

The Sukur ancient site is an architectural works community located on a hill above the village of Sukur in the Madagali Local Government of Adamawa State. It is situated in the Mandira Mountains, close the Cameroonian border.

Its ancestors were believed to have created and maintained architectural works, metal technology, and stone age iron smelting which has lasted since 17th century. The superiority of these ancient works got international attention when UNESCO enlisted it as the 25th world heritage site in 1999 – the first of its kind in Nigeria. It is Africa’s first cultural landscape to be inducted into the World Heritage List. 

Iron Age relics found in the form of furnaces, ore, and grindstones at the site have been established to be of pre-Sukur existence. There are also some finds from the neolithic period.

Other cultural heritage features of the site include the Hidi’s Palace Complex and village, material culture, and the natural terraced fields.

The cultural landscape of Sukur is an eloquent testimony to a strong and continuing cultural tradition that has endured for many centuries.

Mandara Mountains

The Shebshi Mountains rest in the northeastern part of the state along the Cameroonian border, and its highest peak is Mount Dimlang (2,042 m) in the state’s south-eastern region. Shebshi is an ideal place for rock and mountain climbing.

Ruwan Zafi of Gyakan Village

Ruwan Zafi, as locals call it in Hausa, literally means ‘hot water’. It is a hot spring gushing out of the Gyakan Village earth, It runs unceasingly all year round, forming a large and deep body of water that flows downstream to join another, larger water body.

This spring is generally believed by locals to be therapeutic, and can cure a number of diseases that have that have eluded even the best medical professionals in the world.

It is unknown how the earth heats up the water and pushes it out to the surface, but you can hear it rumbling out of the ground even as one takes in the grandeur of the mountain range.

Many come from far and wide to experience the charms and discover the mysteries of the Gyakan hot spring. Don’t miss out on it as well.

Kiri Dam

Nestled between jutted hillocks, Kiri Dam has an electrifying atmosphere, an enchanting scenery, and awesome tales of hippopotamus popping up on the surface of the serene light blue water at sunset.

It’s windy, and the hillocks surrounding the Waterview is fabulous. The architecture of the dam itself is an edifice. The dam’s reservoir, which covers an area of 5,626 km on the river Gongola course, is a home to over 200 hippopotami.

Located near Kiri town, and specifically built to supply the electricity and water needs of Savannah Sugar Company at Numan, the dam is a beautiful structure with modern facilities to accommodate tourists. Besides from irrigation and fishing, the dam is also suitable for boat racing and surfing.

Koma Hills

Koma Hills has beautiful scenery with stone writings and painting of medieval inhabitants of the area called Komatsu people. The Hills give insight to their history.

Koma Hills are located on the mountainous fringes bordering Cameroon and Nigeria in Jada, Adamawa. Koma people are the inhabitants of the hills. They are a pre-modern race representing an ancient way of life presumably from the stone age. Complete with primitive mannerisms and mode of dressing bordering on nudity, they uphold this as a cultural heritage

Three Sisters Rocks

They appear in three formations, creating beautiful scenery that overlooks Song, Adamawa.