Study Abroad Programs in Nigeria

With over 154 million people living within its borders, Nigeria is Africa's most populous nation and the seventh in the world. The country's population is so huge that one out of every four Africans is a Nigerian. Nigeria is also a large country when it comes to geographical size, with a total land area of almost 1,000,000 square kilometers, or about double the size of the state of California.

Situated in West Africa on the Gulf of Guinea, Nigeria shares borders with Benin, Cameroon, Chad, and Niger, and enjoys coastline of over 800 kilometers. The majority of the country's population, about 50 percent, lives in rural areas and the rest populate urban areas, especially the city of Lagos which is home to around eight million people. Nigeria has five other cities that have populations exceeding one million: Kano, Ibadan, Kaduna, Port Harcourt, and Benin City. The capital city of Abuja, in contrast, has only about 160,000 residents. 

Nigeria's climate is as varied as its landscape. South Nigeria's climate is mainly tropical rainforest, with only two main seasons--rainy and dry. The long rainy season is from March to July, while the short rainy season comes in September and lasts until mid-October. The short dry season, on the other hand, occurs in August for about three to four weeks, followed by the longer dry season from October to March. North Nigeria enjoys more stable climate with the dry season occurring from October to mid May and the wet season from June to September.