During the Middle Ages the Niger region was on the central caravan route from North Africa to the Hausa states and the empires of Mali and Songhai. The area was therefore penetrated early by Muslim missionaries. The Hausa states were dominant in southern Niger from before the 10th century until the early 19th century, when they were conquered by the Fulani under Usuman dan Fodio. Songhai was for almost a thousand years the supreme power in the western part of the country, while the Kanem-Bornu Empire exerted a powerful influence in the east. In the 14th century the Tuareg populated the Aïr Plateau, where they subsequently established the sultanate of Agadez.

One of the central themes of the history of Niger is the interaction between the Tuareg (and also Tubu) nomads of the vast Saharan north and the agriculturalists of the sedentary south—the interaction, that is, between opposed yet complementary ways of life and civilizations. Among the agriculturalists the main ethnic groups are the Songhai-Zerma in the west, the Hausa in the centre, and the Kanuri in the east. The Hausa have always been the most numerous. They constitute nearly half of the total population of Niger.

The first Europeans to enter the area were Scottish explorer Mungo Park in 1795 and 1805 and German explorers Heinrich Barth and Eduard Vogel in 1850. The French occupied the area about 1890. It was made a military territory in 1900, an autonomous territory in 1922, and an overseas territory in 1946. Proclaimed an autonomous republic of the French Community in 1958, Niger became fully independent on August 3, 1960. In 1960 Hamani Diori was elected president by the legislature. In 1964 the government crushed a rebellion aimed against the Diori regime, and in April 1965 the president survived an assassination attempt. He was reelected in 1965 and 1970. Niger was one of six sub-Saharan nations affected by a five-year drought, which was broken by summer rains in 1973.