Place:Kwara, Nigeria

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Kwara State is a state in Western Nigeria, bordered to the east by Kogi State, to the north by Niger State, and to the south by Ekiti, Osun, and Oyo states while its western border makes up part of the international border with Benin Republic. Its capital is the city of Ilorin and the state has 16 local government areas.

Of the 36 states of Nigeria, Kwara is the ninth largest in area but the sixth least populous with an estimated population of about 3.2 million as of 2016. Geographically, Kwara is split between the West Sudanian savanna in the east and the Guinean forest–savanna mosaic ecoregion in the rest of the state. Important geographic features include rivers with the Niger flowing along the northern border into Lake Jeba before continuing as the border while the Awun, Asa, Aluko, and Oyun rivers flow through the interior. In the far northwest of the state is the Borgu section of the Kainji National Park, a large national park that contains populations of grey heron, kob, hippopotamus, African bush elephant, olive baboon, and roan antelope along with some of the last remaining West African lions on Earth. In the far southwest, a small part of the Old Oyo National Park contains crowned eagle, martial eagle, African buffalo, oribi, and patas monkey populations.

Kwara State has been inhabited for years by various ethnic groups, primarily the majority Yoruba people that live throughout the state but there are sizeable minorities of Nupe people in the northeast, Bariba (Baatonu) and Busa (Bokobaru) peoples in the west, and Fulani people in Ilorin and moving through the state as nomadic herders.

In the pre-colonial period, majority of the area that is now Kwara State was part of the Oyo Empire, with part of the western portions in the Borgu Kingdoms peopled by the Bariba, Boko and Bissa people, and Nupe Kingdom (1531-1835). In the mid 1800s, the Fulani jihad annexed some of the modern state of Kwara and placed the area under the Gwandu sphere of the Sokoto Caliphate. In the 1890s and 1900s, British expeditions occupied the area and incorporated it into the Northern Nigeria Protectorate. The Northern Nigeria later merged into British Nigeria in 1914 before becoming independent as Nigeria in 1960. Originally, modern-day Kwara State was a part of the post-independence Northern Region until 1967 when the region was split and the area became the West Central State. In 1976, the state was renamed Kwara State and remained intact until the 1990s when its southeast was split off to form a part of Kogi State and its far northwest Borgu division was annexed into the Borgu division of Niger State.

Economically, Kwara State is largely based around agriculture, mainly of coffee, cotton, groundnut, cocoa, oil palm, and kola nut crops. Other key industries are services, especially in the city of Ilorin, and the livestock herding and ranching of cattle, goats, and sheep. Kwara has the joint-twentieth highest Human Development Index in the country and numerous institutions of tertiary education.

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