Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal republic in West Africa,bordering Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in the north. Its coast in the south lies on the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean.
Nigeria comprises 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. It has been the site of numerous kingdoms and tribal states for millennia. The modern state originated from British colonial rule beginning in the 19th century, and the merging of the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and Northern Nigeria Protectorate in 1914. The British set up administrative and legal structures whilst practicing indirect rule through traditional chiefdoms. Nigeria became a formally independent federation in 1960, and plunged into a civil war from 1967–1970. It has since alternated between democratically-elected civilian governments and military dictatorships, with its 2011 presidential elections being viewed as the first to be conducted reasonably freely and fairly.
With approximately 174 million inhabitants, Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and the seventh most populous country in the world. Nigeria has one of the largest populations of youth in the world.The country is viewed as amultinational state, as it is inhabited by over 500 ethnic groups, of which the three largest are the Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba; these ethnic groups speak over 500 different languages, and are identified with wide variety of cultures.Nigeria is divided roughly in half between Christians, who live mostly in the southern and central parts of the country, and Muslims in the northern and southwestern regions. A minority of the population practise religions indigenous to Nigeria, such as those native to Igbo and Yoruba peoples.