In West Africa, people did many things with iron. One of the things they used it for was for farming. They made tools that made clearing land much easier and quicker. The result of that made more land for houses to be built. And also when more houses were built, more people lived in the area. That caused the population to expand. They also made weapons with iron. The weapons were able to defend them. The people that were the first to build things from using iron was the Noks. They gained much respect and power. The good thing about iron is that it was reusable. So if you wanted to build something else, you could just use iron again. The people of West Africa soon started to trade with iron for gold and other things. Iron was a really big impact on West Africa.