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Nigeria The Society and Its Environment
![[GIF]](http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/nigeria/ng02_00a.gif)
Statue of Oya, traditional goddess of
rivers and the wife of Shango, Yoruba god of thunder
NIGERIA, THE MOST POPULOUS country in Africa and the
tenth
largest country by population in the world, is located at
the
eastern terminus of the bulge of West Africa. As with many
of the
other nations of Africa, Nigeria's national boundaries
result
from its colonial history and cut across a number of
cultural and
physical boundaries. Nigeria has a total area of 923,768
square
kilometers, about 60 percent the size of the state of
Alaska, and
the greatest area of the nations along the coast of West
Africa
(although in Africa as a whole, it is only the fourteenth
largest
country by area). The maximum north-south distance within
the
country is about 1,040 kilometers, while the maximum
east-west
distance is about 1,120 kilometers. Although it represents
only
about 3 percent of the surface area of Africa, Nigeria
contains
about 20 percent of total African population. In this and
other
respects, it is arguably the single most important country
on the
continent.
Data as of June 1991
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