Niono

Niono is a town and commune located in the Ségou Region of Mali. The commune has an area of approximately 491 square kilometers and includes the town and 20 of the surrounding villages. In the 2009 census it had a population of 91,554. The town is the capital of the Niono Cercle, one of seven subdivisions (cercles) of the Ségou Region. It lies on the northwest edge of the Inner Niger Delta, near the main channel of the Niger River.

==Office du Niger== Niono is an important town of the Office du Niger irrigation scheme which was established during the last decades of French colonial rule and continued after independence by the Malian state. Water from the Niger River is diverted into a system of canals at the Markala dam 35 km downstream of Ségou. The water flows north for 65 km in the Canal du Sahel and is then used to irrigate the flat alluvial plains around Niono that form part of the 'Delta Mort' (Dead Delta). Although the French colonial administration constructed the system to produce cotton for the textile industry, the main agricultural product is now rice. Each year around 2.7 km3 of water are diverted from the Niger corresponding to 8.3 percent of the total flow. The water is used to irrigate about 750 square kilometers of farmland which in 1999/2000 produced 320,000 tonnes of rice representing 40 percent of the total Malian production.