Kafanchan (Tyap: Fantswam; Nikyob: Manɡyanɡ) is a town located in the southern part of Kaduna State, Nigeria.

The colonial writer Harold D. Gunn was also stated to have rendered the spelling as "Kabanchan" and accordingly gave names to related groups using their non-native words on pages 80–81 of his book Pagan Peoples of the Central Area of Northern Nigeria.

A need birthed their advancement down to Magata, Kacecere, Zali (Malagum) and then to their present abode, Kafanchan, where they discovered enough games and protection from slave raiders, due to the thickly forested environment and thus chose to stay.

[10] A wave of migration caused by human and environmental factors such as the Fulani Jihad and slave raids and famine resulted in other kin sub-groups such as the Nikyob (Hausa: Kaninkon), the Bajju and the Atyap ("Mabatado") settling among the Fantswam.

After the formation of the Plateau province (1926), in 1933, the British colonial authorities encouraged the migration of the Hausa-Fulani community of about 955 from Jama'a Daroro to Kafanchan town.

[11][12][13] In addition to the colonial officers and missionaries who came in the 1900s, the completion of the busy railway line linking the Kaduna station with the Kuru and the Port Harcourt railway stations in 1927, enabled Kafanchan to experience a heavy influx of migrants from all over the country in search for job and trading opportunities, most notably, the Igbo people from Nigeria's southeast, many of whom left before the Nigerian Civil War in 1967, although some later returned.

Yorubas mainly from Ibadan, Ogbomosho and Offa in the southwest also came and settled in considerable amounts in the expanding town, some of whom brought with them their handworks and trades.

[2] M. G. Smith noted that the Fantswam had been regarded by the British colonial government and writers like C. K. Meek as the part of the Agworok (H. Kagoro) under the Jema'a emirate, not until about the late 1950s were they recognized as a distinct political group.

The Southern Kaduna people clamoured for the scrapping of the emirate system on their soil, as it was an alien institution imposed on them by the British colonialists.

The town lies within the Southern Guinea Zone, consisting of forests and savannah lands, and is located southwest of the Jos Plateau escarpment on the windward region.

One word you are sure to find funny if you visit Fantswam (Kafanchan) and surroundinɡ areas of southern Kaduna is the exclamation, "Kwot!"

Nevertheless, from time past before accepting Christianity, the Fantswam people had believed in the existence of an omnipotent and Almighty God they call "Gwam-tazwa," (or Gwaza), translatable to "King of Heaven", as narrated the monarch.

Sun Travels reported palace sources in Zikpak, stating that no member of the Makatanak was permitted to aspire to the throne of the Agwam's, which serves as a check and balance mechanism.

The Fantswam (Kafanchan) chiefdom comprises five ruling houses, namely: Manyii, Takau, Takum, Zibyin (Kajibyin) and Zikpak.

[2] The town has several public educational institutions including primary, secondary and tertiary schools, a High court, a Magistrates' court, police stations, multiple commercial bank buildings, a branch station of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), a General Hospital (Sir Patrick Ibrahim Yakowa Memorial Hospital).

[2] The town lies at the middle of a railway line connecting Port Harcourt, Enugu, Kafanchan, Kuru, Bauchi, and finally Maiduguri.

According to the town's monarch while recounting the good old days, as narrated by Sun Travels: Kafanchan was very vibrant, while the railways functioned.Before the rise and even after the fall of the railways, the Fantswam people's major occupation is agriculture, and like the natives of Chori, Kwoi, Nok and other areas in Ham land, the Fantswam also grow high-quality ginger in abundance in addition to beans, guinea-corn, millet, maize, yam, cocoyam, rice and fonio (F. tson, H. acha).

[26] Around the town is a waterfall known as Ka̱byek tityong (Hausa: Matsirga, English: River Wonderful) located around Batadon (Madakiya) of Bajju chiefdom and Aduwan District of Fantswam chiefdom, with underdeveloped tourist attraction potentials, although an indigenously owned resort, Fantswam Resort was of late established around the waterfall area in Aduwan IV, Kafanchan.