Provinces of Nigeria
administrative divisions, 1900 to 1967
The Provinces of Nigeria were administrative divisions in Nigeria, in use from 1900 to 1967 in Colonial Nigeria and shortly after independence. They were altered many times through their history. They were divided into divisions; some of these were further subdivided into native authorities. Northern Nigeria and Southern Nigeria were also sometimes known as the Northern Provinces or Southern Provinces respectively. Currently, Nigeria is a federation of 36 states.The first use of provinces was in Northern Nigeria after Britain took over administration of the area from the Royal Niger Company in 1900. The British originally divided the area into eleven provinces which were:
Bauchi
Bida
Bornu
Kabba
Kontagora
Lower Benue or Nassarawa
Illorin
Muri
Sokoto
Upper Bema
Zaria
In 1903 six more provinces were added; five following the Sokoto-Kano campaign, and also Gwandu province, making a total of 17. The number of provinces was reduced to 13 in 1911, and 12 after World War I. In 1926 Adamawa and Plateau became new provinces.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Provinces of Nigeria” is administrative divisions, 1900 to 1967. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Provinces, Nigeria and administrative, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3531136. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1900, 1967, 1903 and 1911.
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This entry incorporates text from “Provinces of Nigeria” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.