What is the capital of Nigeria?

Abuja was created to solve a problem of balance. Lagos, the capital inherited at independence, was a crowded coastal port in the southwest, firmly within Yoruba territory, and in a country divided among large regional and religious blocs a capital identified with one of them was politically awkward, quite apart from the congestion. In the 1970s a commission recommended a new city in the sparsely populated centre of the country, on relatively neutral ground between north and south, and a Federal Capital Territory was carved out for it. Construction began in the following decade and the formal transfer of the capital took place in 1991. The city was master-planned, with government districts arranged along an axis anchored by the enormous granite monolith of Aso Rock, which stands behind the presidential complex. Lagos kept the commercial life and remains the economic engine of the country.

The Federal Capital Territory is administered directly rather than being part of any state, on the same principle as other purpose-built capitals.