Kita, Mali


Kita is a town and urban commune in western Mali. The town is the capital of the Kita Cercle in the Kayes Region. It lies on the eastern slope of Mount Kita, known for its caves and rock paintings. Today, the town is known for its music, its annual Roman Catholic pilgrimage and its role as a processing center for the surrounding cotton- and peanut-growing region. Kita lies on the Dakar-Niger Railway and is the largest transit hub between Bamako and Kayes. In the 2009 census the urban commune had a population of 48,947.
In November 1955, Kita became a commune of average exercise. On March 2, 1966, Kita became a commune of full exercise. The town grew in the 1990s around the cotton industry, but this has since declined.
A fictionalized version of Kita features as the setting for Malian author Massa Makan Diabaté's "Kouta Trilogy".

Notable residents