Most Busiest City In Africa
The busiest city in Africa most definitely can’t escape being a conurbation as they are the places that welcome a large influx of people and business more than anywhere else. A conurbation is a region comprising a number of cities, large towns and other urban areas that, through population growth and physical expansion, have merged to form one continuous urban and industrially developed area. With that said, let’s talk a little about LAGOS, the busiest city in Africa.
First off, Lagos is the only place in Nigeria and probably in Africa that answers two names; one general name and a name in the dominant Yoruba dialect (Èkó). Asides from being the only conurbation in Nigeria, it is the busiest both in Nigeria and in Africa. Lagos is the first in the ranking of Nigerian cities and it is the most populous city in Africa. Just in 2015, Lagos had a population of 11.2 million inhabitants and was behind Cairo’s 13.9 million inhabitants as the second-largest city in Africa.
Fast forward to today, there are well over 19.5 million people residing in the city of Lagos. That’s some stupendous growth. Lagos generates about a quarter of Nigeria’s GDP.
Victoria Island, popularly known as VI is the financial centre of the metropolis, although even outside VI, there are a lot of points of interest (POI) all over Lagos.
Lagos is divided into two parts – the Mainland; consisting of places like Ikeja (capital), Oshodi, Surulere, etc. and the Island; consisting of places like Lagos Island, Lekki, V.I, etc. POI’s are all over Lagos and they include Beaches, Multinational Company Head Quarters, Seaports, The National Stadium, and let’s not forget the Billionaire neighbourhood and one of its kind – Banana Island.
Lagos has a whole lot of millionaires and also a few billionaires. People living on the island are generally assumed to be richer than those on the mainland; although this is just an assumption based on the difference in the cost of living on the mainland to that of the island.
Lagos continues to expand at an explosive rate, as the government continues to put in as much effort as possible to make the busiest city in Africa habitable for everyone; including the 8,000 people estimated to be coming into Lagos on a daily basis for business transactions.
Although security, power generation, amenities provision and maintenance, job creation, fluidity in transportation continues to pose an issue, Lagos remains a metropolis that would continually put Nigeria in the spotlight, as the country hosting the busiest city in Africa.