State: Rivers

Rivers State sits in the heart of the Niger Delta, with Port Harcourt, the commercial center of Nigeria’s oil industry, as its capital. It was created on 27 May 1967.

The state borders Imo and Anambra to the north, Abia and Akwa Ibom to the east, and Bayelsa and Delta to the west, with the Atlantic Ocean along its southern edge.

More than twenty six ethnic communities live in Rivers State, with Ikwerre the most widely spoken, alongside Ijaw, Ogoni, Ogba, Ekpeye, Kalabari, and Degema groups, each holding onto distinct languages and traditions.

Oil defines the state’s economy more than almost anywhere else in Nigeria: Rivers produces more than 60 percent of the country’s crude output. Fishing, farming, and refining operations fill out the rest of the local economy.

Finima Nature Park on Bonny Island protects a stretch of coastal forest, and the Upper Orashi Forest, recognized under the Ramsar Convention as a wetland of international importance, shelters wildlife found almost nowhere else in the delta. The Port of Onne, one of the region’s busiest seaports, handles much of the equipment feeding the oil and gas industry.

Port Harcourt has grown into one of Nigeria’s most important commercial cities, its economy shaped almost entirely by the oil wealth flowing out of the surrounding creeks and swamps.