Biu, town, historic kingdom, and traditional emirate, Borno State, northeastern Nigeria. The town lies on the Biu Plateau and has road connections to Damaturu, Mubi, and Shani.
According to tradition, the Biu kingdom was founded by conquest in the mid-16th century by Yamta-ra-Wala (Yamta the Great; also called Yamta [Abdullahi] Ula). The defeated people, however, recovered much of their territory during the rule of Yamta’s son; and not until c. 1670, in the reign of Mari Watila Tampta, did the kingdom become generally secure.
Buba Yero, the first ruler of Gombe emirate (to the west), brought the Fulani jihād (holy war) to the region in the early 19th century; but Biu’s Mari Watirwa (reigned 1793–1838), whose capital was at Kogu, eventually defeated the Fulani forces. About 1870 Ari Paskur ordered Biu town, near Kogu, to be walled, and in 1878 his son, Mari Biya, became the first Bura (Pabir) king to rule from the town. Not until 1904, a year after the British established a military post in Gujba (64 mi [103 km] north-northwest), did Biu become the traditional capital. Biu division was created in 1918; and, in 1920, Mai Ari Dogo (King Ari I; title, Kuthli Viyu) was acknowledged as the first amīr of Biu. The region is mainly inhabited by Bura, Tera, Margi (Marghi), Hina (Hinna), and Fulani Kitaku (Kitije Filane) peoples. Since 1957, when the former districts of Shani and Askira (the home of the Margi) were added to Biu emirate, the area has been known as the Biu federation.
Most inhabitants in the region keep cattle, goats, sheep, horses, and donkeys; and Biu town is the chief trade centre (sorghum, millet, peanuts [groundnuts]) on the plateau. The town, site of the emir’s palace, has several government health offices and a dispensary. The Church of the Brethren operates a teacher-training college at nearby Biu Waka. The crocodiles of Tila Lake, a crater lake in an extinct volcano measuring 1,800 feet (550 m), just southwest of the town, are sacred to Biu’s traditional rulers. Pop. (2006) local government area, 176,072.