KATSENA, Kassina, or Kashna, a town of Central Africa, situated about 170 miles to the east of Sokoto, the capital of the state to which it now pays tribute. The walls have a circuit of between 13 and 14 English miles, but at the time of Barth’s visit only the north-western quarter was inhabited, and he estimated the population at not more than 7000 or 8000. In the 17th and 18th centuries it appears to have been the largest town in the whole region, and its inhabitants cannot have numbered less than 100,000. The date of its foundation must be comparatively modern, for at the time of Leo Africanus there was no place of any considerable size in the province which bore the name now applied to the town. In the beginning of the present century it fell into the hands of the Fellatah, but only after a protracted and heroic defence.