Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa and the most populous country on the African continent. Nigeria shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, Niger in the north, and borders the Gulf of Guinea in the south, and has an area of 923,768 km². With an estimated 133,530,000 people as of 2005, Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa, and the ninth most populous country in the world. A founding member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, it is one of the top ten oil producers in the world, but has been wracked by violence in the oil-rich Niger Delta, where locals demand a larger share of petroleum profits. The country has a mix of religions, including Christianity, Islam, and traditional beliefs, as well as a variety of ethnic groups, such as the Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba.
Did you know?
...that Bayajidda, the mythical ancestor of the Hausa people, is said to have fathered three children with three different women?...that of Nigeria's 521 languages, 9 are extinct and 2 are spoken only as second languages?
...that the Defaka people are gradually abandoning their language in favour of the language of the Nkoroo, their close neighbours?
...that the Area Boys are a gang of street children and teenagers who roam the streets of Lagos extorting money from passers-by?
...that at the time of his death in 1955, Kano businessman Alhassan Dantata was the richest man in West Africa?
