African women in power · year lookup
Who ruled in any given year?
Enter a year and see which documented African women held sovereign, regental, military, queen-mother, or sacred office at that moment — and, when the records are silent, who ruled nearest to it. Every year from 1500 BCE to 2026 CE has its own page.
- Years covered
- 3,526
- Rulers in the records
- 15
- Earliest
- 1500 BCE
Try a turning-point year
- 1479 BCE Hatshepsut
- 40 BCE Amanirenas
- 10 BCE Amanishakheto
- 1400 CE Amina of Zazzau
- 1504 CE Idia
- 1624 CE Nzinga Mbande
- 1816 CE Nandi kaBhebhe
- 1828 CE Ranavalona I
- 1846 CE Ndaté Yalla Mbodj
- 1854 CE Masalanabo Modjadji II
- 1895 CE Khesetoane Modjadji III
- 1900 CE Yaa Asantewaa
- 1959 CE Makoma Modjadji IV
- 1980 CE Mokope Modjadji V
- 2003 CE Makobo Modjadji VI
Browse by era
How this lookup works
A page for every year
Each year has its own address, such as /tools/year-lookup/1624/. A ruler appears on a year if the office she held spans it. Dates mark authority — a reign or office tenure — not a lifespan.
When the records are silent
Most years have no documented woman ruler in this dataset. Those pages still answer the question by naming the nearest rulers before and after, and the era the year belongs to.
Only profiled, sourced figures
The lookup draws on the same curated set as the African Queens Timeline: women who already have a sourced profile here. It is a selected chronology, not a complete census, and it grows as new profiles publish.
Living successions excluded
Living claimants and active succession disputes are intentionally left out. Recent years therefore point to the last documented holder rather than a current officeholder.