Igboland

Igboland (Àlà Ị̀gbò), also written Ala Igbo or Alaigbo, is the cultural and linguistic homeland of the Igbo people in southern Nigeria. It is not a political or administrative unit and therefore has no official capital or government. In most scholarly usage, it comprises the five predominantly Igbo-speaking states of Nigeria's South East—Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo—together with neighbouring Igbo-speaking communities in Delta and Rivers states. The Niger River divides the region into a larger eastern area and a smaller western area. Western Igboland includes the Anioma communities of Delta State, among them Asaba, whose history has been studied as that of an Igbo community west of the Niger. The region is internally diverse: local communities developed different political institutions, dialects, artistic traditions and patterns of settlement, while remaining connected through trade, migration, kinship and shared cultural practices. Igboland contains a network of historic trading, industrial, administrative and educational centres. Major cities include Aba, Abakaliki, Asaba, Awka, Enugu, Nnewi, Nsukka, Onitsha, Owerri and Umuahia. Port Harcourt, a large multi-ethnic Niger Delta metropolis, is closely linked to the region economically and historically, but its territorial and ethnic classification requires care because indigenous Ikwerre and Okrika claims overlap in and around the city.