Urbanization Among the Yoruba

Abstract

The Yoruba of Western Nigeria have large, dense, permanent settlements, based upon farming rather than upon industrialization, the pattern of which is traditional rather than an outgrowth of acculturation. They are undoubtedly the most urban of all African peoples, the percentage living in large communities being comparable to that in European nations. In terms of these communities, Wirth's final criterion of the city, social heterogeneity, may be critically examined and perhaps redefined in terms of economic specialization and interdependence or replaced by formalized government which incorporates primary groups into a political community.