Nigeria
Capital: Abuja · West Africa
Africa's most populous nation and one of its deepest cultural wells — Nok terracottas, Ife bronzes, Benin's royal art, the Sokoto Caliphate and over 500 languages.
Ethnic communities
- YorubaIfe and Oyo civilizations; orisha religion, bronze casting
- IgboNri kingdom, mbari houses, masquerades and republican governance
- HausaAncient city-states (Kano, Katsina) and centuries of urban trade
- FulaniPastoral nation and founders of the Sokoto Caliphate
- Edo (Benin)Benin Kingdom's world-famous brasses and royal court
- Ijaw, Efik, IbibioNiger Delta maritime cultures and Ekpe societies
More communities of Nigeria
- Edo (Bini) — Benin Kingdom's brasses and moats
- Kanuri — Bornu's thousand-year Islamic state
- Ijaw — Delta water-people of masquerade and mangrove
- Tiv — Benue farmers of egalitarian genius
- Ibibio & Annang — Ekpe society and raffia arts of the southeast
- Efik — Calabar's trading houses and ekombi grace
- Nupe — Niger-valley brass, glass and kingship
- Idoma & Igala — Benue-confluence kingdoms of masked ancestors
- Urhobo & Isoko — Western delta farmers of udje satire dance
- Itsekiri — Warri kingdom of river trade
- Jukun — Kwararafa's priest-kings of the Benue
- Gwari (Gbagyi) — Abuja plateau's first farmers and potters
- Berom & Plateau peoples — Tin-country terrace farmers of many tongues
- Ebira & Esan — Confluence and Edo-north farming kingdoms
Languages
Major languages: Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, Fulfulde, Kanuri, Ijaw, English
Language families: Niger-Congo; Afro-Asiatic (Chadic); Nilo-Saharan (Kanuri)
Historical kingdoms & states
- • Nok culture
- • Ife
- • Oyo Empire
- • Benin Kingdom
- • Kanem-Bornu
- • Sokoto Caliphate
- • Nri
Heritage sites
- • Sukur Cultural Landscape
- • Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove
- • Ancient Kano city walls
- • Benin City earthworks
Cultural highlights
Deep-dive community profiles
Bariba (Baatombu)
The horsemen of Borgu — whose Wasangari nobility rode against every empire that approached, whose Nikki and Parakou courts still hold the Gaani festival, and whose kingdom Islam, Songhai and the Sokoto Caliphate all failed to conquer.
Open deep profile →Berom
The plateau farmers of Jos — tin-country people of the Nzem festival and the mado initiation, whose terraced highland farms and stone-walled compounds held the cool heart of Nigeria's Middle Belt.
Open deep profile →Edo (Benin Kingdom)
The people of Benin City, whose Oba-centered civilization produced the world-renowned Benin Bronzes, a moated city that astonished early European visitors, and a living monarchy whose court ritual continues after seven centuries.
Open deep profile →Fulani (Fulbe)
The great pastoral nation of the Sahel — some 40 million people scattered from Senegal to Sudan, keepers of the pulaaku ethical code, founders of Islamic reform states, and among them the Wodaabe, whose Gerewol beauty festival is world-famous.
Open deep profile →Hausa
West Africa's greatest urban trading civilization — the walled city-states of Kano, Katsina and Zaria, a lingua franca spoken by over 80 million, centuries of Islamic scholarship, and the spectacular horsemanship of the Durbar.
Open deep profile →Ibibio & Efik
The Cross River peoples of Nigeria's southeast — masters of the Ekpe leopard society and its nsibidi ideographic script, of the fattening-room bride, and of the raffia-and-wood masks that crossed the Atlantic to become Cuba's Abakuá.
Open deep profile →Idoma
The Benue valley people of the white-faced Ichahoho masks and the Alekwu ancestral cult — farmers and hunters whose Och'Idoma unites a once-stateless nation, and whose Ogrinya warrior dance still stamps the Middle Belt's festivals.
Open deep profile →Igbo
One of Africa's great republican civilizations — over 35 million people of southeastern Nigeria whose village democracies, masquerade societies, Nri priest-kingship and the astonishing 9th-century bronzes of Igbo-Ukwu testify to deep indigenous sophistication.
Open deep profile →Ijaw (Izon)
The people of the Niger Delta's ten thousand creeks — canoe-house traders, masters of the water-spirit masquerades whose headdresses skim the surface like living fish, and the conscience of the Delta's oil age.
Open deep profile →Jukun (Wapan)
Heirs of Kwararafa — the confederacy that raided Kano and Bornu — whose Aku Uka is a divine king traditionally hidden from public view, and whose Puje festival and akuma masquerades keep a Benue kingdom's memory alive.
Open deep profile →Kanuri
The imperial people of the Lake Chad basin — heirs of Kanem-Bornu, a Muslim state that lasted a thousand years, whose sultans corresponded with Istanbul and whose scholars, saddled cavalry and desert trade routes linked the Sahara to the savanna.
Open deep profile →Nupe
The river people of the Niger-Kaduna confluence — brass-smiths, glass-makers and boat-builders whose Bida emirate turned a pre-Islamic kingdom into a craft metropolis, and whose gugu and ndakogboya masquerades still walk the Middle Belt.
Open deep profile →Tiv
The great egalitarian farmers of the Benue valley — a segmentary nation of yam and sesame growers whose a'kombo ritual repairs the world, whose swange rhythms and kwagh-hir puppet theatre dazzle Nigeria, and who famously never had kings.
Open deep profile →Urhobo
The people of the Delta's freshwater swamps — whose colossal edjo re akare shrine figures stand over ancestral halls, whose Ohworu water-spirit masquerade rises from the creeks, and whose twenty-two kingdoms hold the oil country's western flank.
Open deep profile →Yoruba
One of Africa's great urban civilizations — over 40 million people whose sacred city of Ilé-Ifẹ̀, orisha religion, divination science and bronze-casting mastery have shaped world culture from Lagos to Bahia and Havana.
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