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The Yorùbá are the largest ethnic group in Nigeria, comprising approximately 26 percent of that country's total population, and numbering about close to 50 million individuals throughout the region of West Africa. While the majority of the Yorùbá live largely in the south-west of Nigeria, there are also substantial Yorùbá communities in Benin, Togo, Sierra Leone, Cuba and Brazil.
The Yorùbá are the main ethnic group in the states of Ekiti, Kwara, Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Kogi, Edo (Akoko Edo), and Oyo; they also constitute a sizable proportion of the citizens of the Republic of Benin. The majority of Yorùbá people are Christians, with the Church of Nigeria (Anglican), Catholic, Pentecostal, Methodist, and Indigenous churches having the largest memberships. Muslims comprise about a quarter of the Yorùbá population, with the traditional Yorùbá religion accounting for the rest.
The chief Yorùbá cities are Lagos, Ibadan, Abeokuta, Akure, Ilorin, Ijebu Ode, Ogbomoso, Ondo, Ota, Shagamu, Iseyin, Osogbo, Ilesha, Oyo and Ilé-Ifè.
Sport: Yorùbáland stadia include the National Stadium, Lagos (55,000 capacity), Teslim Balogun stadium (35,000 capacity), Liberty Stadium, Ibadan (40,000 capacity).
History
The Yorùbá were the most urbanized sub-saharan Africans in the pre-colonial era, and have a history of town-dwelling that goes back to 500 A.D. The wealth of the Yorùbá came from controlling the important trade routes to the coast. The pre-colonial Yorùbá had recently been forced further south by the Fulani who made extensive use of cavalry. The Yorùbá lost the northern portion of their region, retreating to the latitudes where tsetse flies made horses unable to survive.
The Yorùbá were a loose confederacy that often saw wars between the city states. In theory all Yorùbá acknowledge the leadership of the ancient city of Ife in religious matters and the rule of the recently risen rulers of Oyo as political leader. The ruler of Oyo held the power to confirm or reject the leaders of the other cities, but this power could not always be executed.
Most of the city states were controlled by heriditary monarchs and councils made up of nobles, guild leaders, and merchants. Different states saw differing ratios of power between the two. Some had an autocratic monarch with almost total control, in others the councils were supreme and the king little more than a figurehead.
See also
External links
- Picture of Lagos (http://www.geocities.com/seelagos)
- Picture of Ibadan (http://www.geocities.com/seeibadan)
- Picture of Ilorin (http://www.geocities.com/nigeriacities1)
- A Yoruba family website (http://www.soyombo.org)de:Yoruba