Numan, town and port on the Benue River, Adamawa state, eastern Nigeria. It is located about 30 miles (50 km) from Yola, opposite the mouth of the Gongola River, which is the principal tributary of the Benue River. Numan is connected by road to Gombe, Shellen, Yola, Jalingo, and Ganye. Probably founded by the Njei (Jenjo, Jenge) people, it was occupied in the early 19th century by members of the Bata people who were fleeing the advance of the Fulani jihad (“holy war”), and it became the centre of a small Bata kingdom in the 1850s. The town was selected in 1885 as a trading post by the National African (later Royal Niger) Company, which burned it in 1891 after an attack on a company ship by the Bachama peoples. Numan was gradually rebuilt, and the British established a garrison there in 1903. In 1912 the town became the headquarters of Numan division, a region that became the Numan federation in 1951. In 1921, Chief Hamma Mbi moved the Bachama traditional headquarters from Lamurde (20 miles west-northwest) and constructed his palace in the town.
Modern Numan, a local government headquarters, is a collecting point for peanuts (groundnuts) and cotton and an important trade centre (sorghum, millet, cowpeas, fish, goats, sheep, and cattle). Outside the town along the Benue are the state government’s sugarcane estate and sugar-processing plant (1971), one of the largest sugar-producing complexes in western Africa. The town is served by several secondary schools, a teacher-training college, a government craft centre, and a hospital. Pop. (2006) local government area, 90,723.