THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA HAS THE GREATEST POPULATION OF ANY COUNTRY IN AFRICA.
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CLIMATE |
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Nigeria is humid in the south, becoming increasingly dry to the north. During December and January a dry wind known as the harmattan blows in from the Sahara Desert, bringing cool nights and a fine covering of sand and dust across the land.
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Early Societies
The first people who lived in what is now Nigeria (nie-JIR-ee-uh) were hunter-gatherers. They made tools and weapons of stone and lived by hunting animals, gathering wild fruits and vegetables, and catching fish in local rivers. Toward the end of the Stone Age (about 5000 B.C.E.), some peoples began to practice agriculture and settle in villages. In the savanna region people kept cattle and grew millet and rice, which were originally wild grasses. On the forest edges they cultivated yams (a root vegetable) and palm nuts (from palm trees).
About twenty-five hundred years ago, the knowledge of ironworking spread in the region. Iron tools made clearing vegetation and digging wells for water much easier. People could grow more food and their populations expanded. Not everyone was needed to farm. Some people could become specialists, such as artisans, traders, priests, and rulers.
Knowledge of this early history of Nigeria is sketchy. Evidence of Stone Age and Iron Age people has been found, mostly in the form of stone ax heads and iron-smelting furnaces. The most important find to date is at the village of Nok in central Nigeria. Here, iron-smelting furnaces and fine terra-cotta sculptures have been found. The Nok culture flourished between about 400 B.C.E. and 200 C.E.
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FACTS AND FIGURES |
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Official name: Federal Republic of Nigeria Status: Independent state Capital: Abuja Major towns: Lagos, Ibadan, Ogbomosho, Kano, Ilorin, Port Harcourt, Zaria Area: 356,669 square miles (923,773 square kilometers) Population: 131,900,000 Population density: 370 per square mile (143 per square kilometer) Peoples: 29 percent Hausa and Fulani; 21 percent Yoruba; 18 percent Igbo; 10 percent Ijaw; 4 percent Kanuri; 4 percent Ibibio; 3 percent Tiv; 11 percent others Official language: English Currency: Naira National day: Independence Day (October 1) Country’s name: Nigeria takes its name from the Niger River. Niger means "black" in Latin, the language of the Romans, but it is not known why the river got this name.
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Little else is known about the history of Nigeria during the first thousand years C.E. Bronze objects found at Igbo-Ukwo (EE-boe-ook-woe) in the forests of the south are believed to be burial objects of a leader who lived in the late ninth century. The copper used to make them must have come from Saharan mines in present-day Niger, so forest peoples must have had contact with the long-distance trading networks to the north.
