Wadai, historical African kingdom east of Lake Chad and west of Darfur, in what is now the Ouaddaï (q.v.) region of eastern Chad. It was founded in the 16th century, and a Muslim dynasty was established there about 1630. Long subordinate to Darfur, it became independent by the 1790s and began a period of rapid expansion, chiefly at the expense of the Bornu kingdom to the west. Its prosperity resulted from its position at the junction of two major trade routes: the east-west route linking the upper Nile River and Darfur with Bornu and Kano, and the trans-Saharan route from Abéché (Wadai’s main town) northward to Banghāzī on the Mediterranean. In the 19th century, caravans abandoned other trails across the desert in favour of the Abéché-Banghāzī route because it was safer, thanks to the regional stability achieved by a series of strong Wadai kings, or kolaks (al-Sharif, 1835–58; Ali, 1858–74; and Yusuf, 1874–98). French occupation between 1906 and 1914 put an end to the trans-Saharan trade.