Dirkou is a town

Town

A town is a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city. The size a settlement must be in order to be called a "town" varies considerably in different parts of the world, so that, for example, many American "small towns" seem to British people to be no more than villages, while...

 in the Bilma Department

Bilma Department

Bilma is a department of the Agadez Region in Niger. Its capital lies at the city of Bilma....

, Agadez Region of north-eastern Niger

Niger

Niger , officially named the Republic of Niger, is a landlocked country in Western Africa, named after the Niger River. It borders Nigeria and Benin to the south, Burkina Faso and Mali to the west, Algeria and Libya to the north and Chad to the east...

. It lies in the northern Kaouar

Kaouar

The Kaouar, or Kaouar Cliffs is a north-south escarpment running some 150 km in north east Niger. Surrounded by the Ténéré desert and the dunes of the Erg of Bilma, easterly winds striking the 100 meter high escarpment of Kaouar provide easy access to groundwater for ten oases on the leeward side...

 escarpment, a north-south line of cliffs which form an isolated oasis in the Sahara

Sahara

The Sahara is the world's second largest desert, after Antarctica. At over , it covers most of Northern Africa, making it almost as large as Europe or the United States. The Sahara stretches from the Red Sea, including parts of the Mediterranean coasts, to the outskirts of the Atlantic Ocean...

 desert.

The town is just south of Séguédine

Séguedine

Séguédine is a town in central eastern Niger, lying at the far northern tip of the Kaouar escarpment, an inhabited oasis in the midst of the Sahara desert...

, and around 90 km north of Departmental capital Bilma

Bilma

Bilma is an oasis town in north east Niger with a population of around 2,500 people. It lies protected from the desert dunes under the Kaouar Cliffs and is the largest town along the Kaouar escarpment...

. While isolated in modern Niger, it once lay on the important central soudan route of the Trans-Saharan trade

Trans-Saharan trade

Trans-Saharan trade requires travel across the Sahara to reach sub-Saharan Africa. While existing from prehistoric times, the peak of trade extended from the 8th century until the late 16th century.- Increasing desertification and economic incentive :...

 which linked coastal Libya

Libya

Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....

 and the Fezzan

Fezzan

Fezzan is a south western region of modern Libya. It is largely desert but broken by mountains, uplands, and dry river valleys in the north, where oases enable ancient towns and villages to survive deep in the otherwise inhospitable Sahara.-Name:...

 to the Kanem-Bornu Empire

Kanem-Bornu Empire

The Kanem-Bornu Empire existed in modern Chad and Nigeria. It was known to the Arabian geographers as the Kanem Empire from the 9th century AD onward and lasted as the independent kingdom of Bornu until 1900. At its height it encompassed an area covering not only much of Chad, but also parts of...

 near Lake Chad

Lake Chad

Lake Chad is a historically large, shallow, endorheic lake in Africa, whose size has varied over the centuries. According to the Global Resource Information Database of the United Nations Environment Programme, it shrank as much as 95% from about 1963 to 1998; yet it also states that "the 2007 ...

. Its population is made up primarily of traditionally sedentary Kanuri people, as well as semi-nomadic Tuareg and Tubu people.