It is located in the Western Grassfields region - a name for the Northwest Province and surrounding grassland areas.
Bafut is the most powerful of the traditional kingdoms of the Grassfields, now divided into 26 wards along a 10 kilometre stretch of the "Ring Road" that trails along a ridge above the Menchum Valley.
The Germans forced the Fon into exile, but had to ultimately reinstate him as leader when their puppet ruler was not accepted.
Achirimbi II is famously said to have remarked that it was a choice between the "Fire and the Deep Sea"; the region ultimately joined Cameroon.
It was long the centre of the local kingdom of the Tikar people (originally from the Northern regions of Lake Chad), and is administered by the Fon of Bafut.