Funtua

Funtua is a town and local government area at the southern extreme of Katsina State in northwestern Nigeria, and the second largest city in the state after Katsina. It is the headquarters of the Katsina South senatorial district and borders Giwa in Kaduna State as well as the Katsina local government areas of Bakori, Danja, Faskari and Dandume. Hausa people form most of the population, with Fulani, Yoruba, Igbo and Nupe communities, and trading and farming are the main occupations. Funtua has been an industrial and commercial centre since colonial days, with a textile mill, cotton ginneries, flour mills, a fertilizer blending plant and a bottling company. It is served by a railway station on a branch of the western line of the national network and by several federal highways, and its institutions include the Federal University of Health Sciences, Funtua and a remedial school of Ahmadu Bello University. The source of the Sokoto River lies near the town, and the 1991 census counted 82,072 people in the urban settlement.