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Djenné (Bambara: ߖߍ߬ߣߍ߫, romanized: Jɛ̀nɛ́; also known as Djénné, Jenné and Jenne) is a Songhai people town and an urban commune in the Inland Niger Delta region of central Mali. The town is the administrative centre of the Djenné Cercle, one of the eight subdivisions of the Mopti Region. The commune includes ten of the surrounding villages and in 2009 had a population of 32,944. The history of Djenné is closely linked with that of Timbuktu. Between the 15th and 17th centuries much of the trans-Saharan trade in goods such as salt, gold, and slaves that moved in and out of Timbuktu passed through Djenné. Both towns became centres of Islamic scholarship. Djenné's prosperity depended on this trade and when the Portuguese established trading posts on the African coast, the importance of the trans-Saharan trade and thus of Djenné declined. The town is famous for its distinctive adobe architecture, most notably the Great Mosque which was built in 1907 on the site of an earlier mosque. To the south of the town is Djenné-Djenno, the site of one of the oldest known towns in sub-Saharan Africa. Djenné together with Djenné-Djenno were designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1988. From Wikipedia
