Lagos (Pronunciationⓘ; LAY-goss; Yoruba: Èkó [èkó]), or Lagos City, is a large metropolitan port city in southwestern Nigeria. As of November 2025, the size of the city's population has been estimated to be between 17 and 21 million residents, making Lagos the largest city in Nigeria, the most populous urban area on the African continent, and one of the fastest-growing megacities in the world.
The lands are separated by creeks, fringing the southwest mouth of Lagos Lagoon, while being protected from the Atlantic Ocean by barrier islands and long sand spits such as Bar Beach, which stretch up to 100 kilometres (62 mi) east and west of the mouth.
With its international airport, three ports (Apapa, Tin Can Island and Lekki deep-sea port), four expressways (to Badagry, Abeokuta, Ibadan and Calabar, the latter under construction since 2023 and partially operational in 2026), and the standard-gauge rail link to Abeokuta and Ibadan, the city is well connected in terms of transport and handles 88% of Nigeria’s exports. The urban rail transit system in Lagos is regarded as one of the most modern of its kind in Africa.
Lagos is best known as the leading financial centre of West and Central Africa, with headquarters of financial institutions like Access Bank, the First Bank of Nigeria or Zenith Bank. The Nigerian Exchange Group, the main stock exchange group in Nigeria, is also located here. Other major employers include two breweries, three major shipyards and the headquarters of several African airlines. Lagos is also home to numerous pharmaceutical companies; the city is also an exhibition city: Art X Lagos is West Africa’s largest art fair, whilst Lagos Fashion Week is Africa’s largest fashion fair. It has more than 20 data centres in operation and branches of Microsoft, Equinix and Google. Five out of seven African high tech start-ups with a value above US$ 1 billion ("unicorns") are located in Lagos. The employer with the most staff is the Dangote Refinery, which, once expanded, will be the world’s largest oil refinery.
Lagos houses four public universities (LASU, UNILAG, LASUSTECH, and LASUED) and six private universities as well as scientific facilities like the Institute for Oceanography and the Institute of Medical Research. Lagos is also a cultural hub. The National Arts Theatre in Surulere, the National Gallery of Modern Art (in the same building), the Centre For Black And African Arts on Broad Street, the National Museum and the John Randle Centre for Yoruba Culture in Onikan and privately run galleries like Nike Art Gallery (West Africa's biggest art collection) display Nigerias culture. The conservatoire MUSON Centre, many local orchestras and choirs (like the Lagos City Chorale or the Cathedral Church of Christ Choir) as well as writers like Sefi Atta, Oyinkan Braithwaite and Ayòbámi Adébáyò and artists like Dotun Popoola, Peju Alatise, Idowu Sonaya and Collins Abinoro Akporode represent Lagos' creative scene. Furthermore, Lagos is the centre of media outlets and of Nigerian cinema, "Nollywood". The lagoon city also is a hot spot for West African music ("Afrobeats"); in its recording studios Nigerian stars like Wizkid, Tems, Davido, and Asake have started their careers. International stars like Paul McCartney, James Brown, Ed Sheeran and Beyoncé have recorded albums there.
Etymology
Lagos is derived from the Portuguese word for "lakes". The pronunciation (LAY-goss) is typically standard in British and Nigerian English. The native Yoruba name Èkó is also used by Yoruba people. Lagos was most likely named after Lagos, Portugal, as it was the main centre of Portuguese maritime expeditions down the African coast in the 15th century.
History
The Island of Lagos (Yoruba: Ìsàlẹ̀ Èkó) emerged as a home to the Awori people, a subgroup of the Yoruba of West Africa in the 15th century. Before then, the Awori lived in the areas centred around the present-day littoral Local Government Areas of Lagos Mainland, Eti-Osa, Amuwo-Odofin, Apapa and other parts of Lagos metropolis behind the coast, such as Agege, Shomolu, Ikeja, Oshodi-Isolo and Kosofe. Lagos Island itself was a farmstead close to the Lagoon (Ọ̀sà), where they cultivated the land and lived. "Farmstead" or "hamlet" translates to Ereko in Yoruba, from which comes the indigenous name of Lagos; Eko, which it was named by the natives from its earliest days as a farm before it was eventually permanently settled by the Aworis of nearby Iddo Island.
Due to rapid urbanisation, the city expanded to the west of the lagoon to include areas in the present-day Lagos Mainland, Ajeromi-Ifelodun, and Surulere. This led to the classification of Lagos into two main areas: the Island, which was the original city of Lagos, and the Mainland, which it has since expanded into. This city area was governed directly by the Federal Government through the Lagos City Council until the creation of Lagos State in 1967, which led to the splitting of Lagos city into the present-day seven Local Government Areas (LGAs), and the addition of other towns (which now make up 13 LGAs) from the then Western Region to form the state. Present-day Lagos consists of 16 LGAs, including Ikeja, the state capital of Lagos State. While this conurbation encompasses 37% of Lagos State's total land area, it accommodates approximately 85% of the state's total population.
Lagos was the previous national capital of Nigeria, however, in February 1976, the government made the decision to relocate the capital, and initiated its removal to the inland city of Abuja in the centre of the country. After its designation, construction of the new national capital started in earnest, and on December 12 1991, the seat of government officially relocated.
Administration
Lagos was formerly the capital city of Nigeria, but it has since been replaced by Abuja. Abuja officially became the capital of Nigeria on 12 December 1991, although the decision to move the federal capital had been made fifteen years earlier, in Act No. 6 of 1976. Lagos is also home to the High Court of the Lagos State Judiciary, housed in an old colonial building on Lagos Island.
In terms of administration, Lagos is not a single municipality and therefore has no overall city administration. The geographical city limits of Metropolitan Lagos comprise 16 of the 20 Local Government Areas of Lagos State. The latter entity provides overall government for the metropolitan region. The former Municipality of Lagos, which covered Lagos Island, Ikoyi, and Victoria Island as well as some mainland territory, was managed by the Lagos City Council (LCC), but it was disbanded in 1976 and divided into several Local Government Areas (most notably Lagos Island LGA, Lagos Mainland LGA, and Eti-Osa LGA).
The mainland beyond the Municipality of Lagos, on the other hand, included several separate towns and settlements such as Mushin, Ikeja, and Agege. In the wake of the 1970s Nigerian oil boom, Lagos experienced a population explosion, untamed economic growth, and unmitigated rural migration. This caused the outlying towns and settlements to develop rapidly, thus forming the present-day "Lagos Metropolitan Area", also known as "Metropolitan Lagos". The history of Lagos is still evidenced in the layout of the LGAs that display the unique identities of the cultures that created them.
By 2006, the metro area around Lagos had extended beyond Lagos State's boundaries and attained a megacity status. This much larger area is referred to as "Greater Metropolitan Lagos" or "Lagos Megacity Region", which is a continuously built-up land area of an additional 1,535.4 square kilometres (592.8 square miles), in LGAs situated next to Lagos's eastern and western city limits in Lagos State, and also beyond its northern limits, spilling into some LGAs in adjoining Ogun State. Ogun State LGAs that have become part of Greater Metropolitan Lagos include Obafemi Owode, Sagamu, Ifo, Ado-Odo/Ota, and part of Ewekoro.
Today, the word Lagos most often refers to the urban area, called "Metropolitan Lagos" in Nigeria, which includes both the islands of the former municipality of Lagos and the mainland suburbs. The Lagos State government is responsible for some of the utilities, including roads and transportation, power, water, health, and education. Metropolitan Lagos extends over 16 of the 20 LGAs of Lagos State and contains about 85% of the population of Lagos State, including some semi-rural areas. Lagos has a considerable number of high-rise buildings that dominate its skyline. Most of the tall buildings are located in the downtown Central Business District.
Demography
The population of Metropolitan Lagos is disputed. In the 2006 federal census data, the conurbation had a population of about 9 million people. However, the figure was disputed by the Lagos State Government, which later released its own population data, putting the population of Lagos Metropolitan Area at approximately 16 million. Daily, the Lagos area is growing by some 3,000 people or around 1.1 million annually, so the true population figure of the greater Lagos area in 2022 is roughly 28 million (up from some 23.5 million in 2018).
Lagos may therefore have overtaken Kinshasa as Africa's most populous city. The Lagos conurbation is part of an emerging transnational megalopolis on the coast of West Africa that includes areas in five sovereign states, the Abidjan–Lagos Corridor.
Although the 2006 National Population Census of Nigeria credited the metropolitan area with a population figure of 7,937,932, the figure is at variance with some projections by the United Nations and other population agencies and groups worldwide. The population figure of Lagos State given by the Lagos State Government is 17,553,924. That figure was based on claimed conducted enumeration for social planning by the Lagos State Government's "parallel census" and it believes that since the inhabitants of the metropolitan area of Lagos constitute 88% of the Lagos State population, the population of metropolitan Lagos is about 15.5 million.
A rejoinder to Lagos State Government views concluded that Lagos State concealed the fact that the UN agencies' population projection for Lagos Urban Agglomeration had been revised downwards substantially as early as 2003. It failed to interpret the two most important and fairly representative and reliable secondary data sets already in the public domain, the National Identity Card Scheme and the 2003 Voters Registration figures from INEC. The figures for 2007 voter registration by INEC were an act sequel to the release of the provisional census results and comprehensively corroborated, vindicated, and validated the population figures.
According to the official results of the 2006 census, there were 8,048,430 inhabitants in Metropolitan Lagos. This figure was lower than anticipated and has created controversy in Nigeria. Lagos Island, the central Local Government Area and historic center of Metropolitan Lagos, had a population of 212,700 at the 2006 Census.
Authorities of Lagos State have disputed the results of the 2006 census, accusing the Nigerian National Population Commission of undercounting the population of the state. This accusation is denied by the National Population Commission. A study found that research carried out by Africapolis (the African subsidiary of e-Geopolis backed by the Agence française de développement), in addition to the cross-referencing of official figures with more scientific independent research, concluded that the 2006 census figures for Lagos State of about 9 million were valid and that the state's own assessments are inflated.
Lagos is indigenous to the Yoruba people, and the Yoruba language is widely spoken. It is, by most estimates, one of the fastest-growing cities in the world. Lagos is experiencing a population increase of about 275,000 persons per annum due to the influx of people from other regions for economic purposes. In 1999, the United Nations predicted that the city's metropolitan area, which had only about 290,000 inhabitants in 1950, would exceed 20 million by 2010 and thus become one of the ten most populous cities in the world.
Geography
Cityscape
Lagos is loosely classified into two main geographical areas—"Lagos Island" and the "Mainland".
The historic city centre is situated in the western half of Lagos Island, within the Ring Road (E1), with Marina Road, Broad Street, Campbell Street, Igbosere Road and Bamgbose Street/Nnamdi Azikiwe Street running parallel to the coastline towards the Commodore Canal, and Balogun Street, Martin Street, Custom Street, Kakawa Street, Odunlami Street, Campos Street, Joseph Harden Street and Brook Street running perpendicular to it. As in the historic centres of other cities, this area is characterised by social hotspots, chaotic traffic conditions, unaffordable property prices and historic buildings, the proper maintenance of which the city can only afford to a limited extent.
Outside this area, there is a marked disparity in prosperity within the city, with the south-eastern part – comprising neighbourhoods such as Ikoyi, Victoria Island and Lekki, home to bank headquarters and fintech start-ups, the Free (Trade) Zone, the deep-sea port, the Dangote Refinery, hotels and tourist attractions – being described as affluent. By contrast, the western and northern outskirts of the city, with neighbourhoods such as Surelere, Oshodi and Agege, have been able to keep up only to a limited extent with the city’s rapid development since 2010.
Lagos Island
Lagos Island is surrounded by the lagoon (from which it takes its name), the Commodore Channel (which separates the island from the mainland and Apapa) and Five Cowrie Creek (which lies between it and Victoria Island respectively the Lekki Peninsula). During the colonial era, the eastern half of Lagos Island – Ikoyi – was home mainly to light-skinned residents (including a secondary school and a hospital for ‘whites’). To enforce racial segregation, an artificial canal – the McGregor Canal – was dug between the two halves of the island around 1900. This effectively made Lagos Island and Ikoyi two separate islands. In the 1970s, the canal was filled in to allow for the construction of the Ring Road (E1) around the old town centre. As a result, Ikoyi is, geographically speaking, once again part of Lagos Island – yet both halves of the island continue to exhibit completely different social and architectural structures to this day and can therefore still be regarded as distinct neighbourhoods.
Three major bridges join this Island to the Mainland. They are the Carter Bridge, which starts from Iddo; the Eko Bridge (formerly called the Second Mainland Bridge); and the Third Mainland Bridge, which passes through densely populated mainland suburbs to the Lagos Lagoon.
The western part of Lagos Island, together with Calabar, was one of the two starting points for British colonisation. From this strategically situated island, the British were able to control the entire wider region with little effort. Locals and slaves returning from Sierra Leone, Brazil and Cuba were able to conduct business under the protection of the Royal Navy, and turned the marshy island into what it remains today: a pre-eminent financial centre.