Nigeria

Nigeria's southern coast opens onto this arm of the Atlantic, dotted with fishing villages, oil terminals, and the massive port city of Lagos.

The Niger River — Africa's third longest — flows through Nigeria in a great arc before fanning into a vast delta at the Gulf of Guinea, one of the world's most oil-rich regions.

The south is dense rainforest with year-round rain; moving north, the land grades into Guinea savanna, then drier Sudan savanna, and finally semi-arid Sahel near Lake Chad.

A broad highland rising from Nigeria's central plains to about 1,200 meters, the Jos Plateau has a cooler climate and was historically a crossroads of peoples and trade routes.