Landmarks
Waterfalls, caves, mountains, sacred groves and historic sites across the country. Each page covers what a place is, its history, and what a visitor can expect, without listing prices or opening hours that go out of date.
Waterfall
Agbokim Waterfalls lie in the Etung area of Cross River State, in the South South zone, close to the Cameroon border. The Cross River branches over a rock face here and falls in several separate streams into a gorge below.
Waterfall
Awhum, north of Enugu in Enugu State, in the South East zone, has a waterfall that pours over a rock face into a stream below, with a cave in the rock nearby. The site sits close to a monastery and is used both as a place of prayer and as a place visitors walk to.
Historic site
The Benin walls and moat, known locally as the iya, are the earthworks of the old capital of the Benin Kingdom at Benin City in Edo State, in the South South zone. They consist of banks and ditches around the city and outward through the surrounding country.
Waterfall
The Erin Ijesha waterfalls, also called Olumirin, are near Erin-Ijesha in Osun State, in the South West zone. Water falls in a series of steps down a wooded hillside, so the site is a sequence of drops and pools rather than a single fall.
Waterfall
Gurara Falls is a broad waterfall on the Gurara River in Niger State, in the North Central zone, where the river drops across a wide rock shelf into a pool below. Its width rather than its height is what makes it distinctive, and the flow changes considerably between the rainy and dry seasons.
Mountain
Idanre Hills rise above the town of Idanre in Ondo State, in the South West zone. On the high ground stands the old settlement of Idanre, abandoned in the twentieth century when the community moved to the plain below.
Natural feature
Ikogosi, in Ekiti State, in the South West zone, is known for a warm spring and a cold spring that rise close together and meet in a single channel. The meeting point, where the two flows run together, is the feature the site is known for.
National park
Kainji Lake National Park is a large protected area in the north-west of Niger State, extending towards Kwara State, and takes in savannah woodland alongside the lake formed by the Kainji dam. It is one of Nigeria's national parks and covers two separate sectors.
Monument
Kajuru Castle is a privately built stone castle in the Kajuru area of Kaduna State, in the North West zone. It is a modern building in medieval European style, unusual in Nigeria, and it operates as private accommodation rather than as a public monument.
Historic site
The city walls of Kano and Dala Hill sit at the centre of the old walled city in Kano State, in the North West zone. The walls are among the most substantial surviving earth fortifications in West Africa, and Dala Hill is tied to the traditions of the city's founding.
Natural feature
The Lekki Conservation Centre is a protected patch of coastal wetland and secondary forest on the Lekki peninsula in Lagos State, in the South West zone. It preserves a sample of the ecosystem that covered this coast before the city expanded across it.
Mountain
The Mambilla Plateau is a high plateau in the south-east of Taraba State, on the border with Cameroon, and includes the highest inhabited ground in Nigeria. It is named for the Mambila people, and its elevation gives it a cool, wet climate unlike most of the North East zone.
Natural feature
Nike Lake lies on the eastern edge of Enugu, in Enugu State, in the South East zone. It is a lake in the Nike area of the city, best known as the setting for a lakeside hotel and as an open stretch of water within reach of the built-up area.
Resort
Obudu Mountain Resort, often called the Obudu Cattle Ranch, sits high on the Obanliku hills in the north of Cross River State, in the South South zone, near the Cameroon border. Its altitude gives it a cool climate unusual in southern Nigeria.
Cave
The Ogbunike Caves are a linked system of caves and tunnels in a forested valley at Ogbunike in Anambra State, in the South East zone. A stream runs from the caves, and the site has long been treated as sacred by the local Igbo community.
Natural feature
Olumo Rock stands in the middle of Abeokuta, the capital of Ogun State, in the South West zone. The outcrop and the caves within it are tied directly to the founding of the town by Yoruba refugees in the nineteenth century.
Religious site
The Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove lies on the edge of Osogbo in Osun State, in the South West zone. It is a forest along the Osun River containing shrines, sculpture and ritual spaces dedicated to Osun, and it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2005.
Historic site
Sukur is a hill settlement in the Mandara mountains of Adamawa State, in the North East zone. It was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1999, the first Nigerian site to be listed, and is valued as a whole landscape rather than a single monument.
National park
Yankari National Park lies in the south of Bauchi State in the North East zone. It is Nigeria's best-known wildlife park, set in savannah woodland along the Gaji River, and includes warm springs that flow year round.
Natural feature
Zuma Rock is a large monolith rising from the plain beside the road between Abuja and Kaduna, on the Niger State side of the boundary with the Federal Capital Territory. It is one of the most recognisable natural features in North Central Nigeria, and a weathered pattern on one face is widely read as resembling a human face.
