Liptako is a historic region in West Africa which included parts of modern-day Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali. Control of the area changed hands between several regional ethnic groups, before the Gurma people established the kingdom of Koala. In the early 19th century, they were in turn overthrown by the Fula. Although a second kingdom of Koala was established to the south of the first, it never reclaimed significant regional power.
The Fula established Liptako as an Islamic state and an emirate of the Sokoto Caliphate. The emir of Liptako was its ruler until the French colonial occupation began in 1897, but retained political power until the position was dissolved by the post-colonial Upper Volta government in 1963. The emir now serves as a tribal chief on a more local scale.