Ife

Sister cities

• Rio de Janeiro
• San Bernardino

History

According to Yoruba religion, Olodumare, the Supreme God, ordered Obatala to create the earth, however on his way he consumed too much of palm wine and got drunk. Thence, a contemporary Orisha to the former, Oduduwa, took the items of creation from him, descended from the abode of the Orisha on a chain and cast the handful of earth on the primordial ocean. The earth rose and became a mound called Oke Ora. He then put a five-toed cockerel on this primordial mound so that it would scatter the earth around, thus creating the land on which Ile Ife, the first city would be built. The usurpation of creation by Oduduwa, gave rise to an ever-lasting conflict between him and his contemporaneous rival Orisha, Obatala. This symbolic rivalry is still re-enacted in the modern era by the votary groups of the two divinities during the Itapa New Year festival. On account of his creation of the world, Oduduwa became the ancestor of the first divine king of the Yoruba, while Obatala is believed to have created the first Yoruba people out of clay. The meaning of the word "Ife" in Yoruba is "expansion"; "Ile-Ife" is therefore in reference to the myth of origin as "The Land of Expansion" (the word, Ile, as pronounced in modern Yoruba language, means house or home, which would make the name of the city mean "The Home of Expansion"). It would become known as one of the most powerful of Africa's medieval states, prior to its collapse in the mid 19th century.

Geography

Latitudes 7°28′N and 7°45′N and longitudes 4°30′E and 4°34′E. Ile-Ife is a rural area with settlements where agriculture is occupied by most. Ife has an undulating terrain underlain by metamorphic rocks and characterised by two types of soils, deep clay soils on the upper slopes and sandy soils on the lower parts. Within the tropical savanna climate zone of West Africa. It has average rainfall of usually from March to October and a mean relative humidity of 75% to 100%. Ife is east of the city of Ibadan and connected to it through the Ife-Ibadan highway; Ife is also from Osogbo and has road networks to other cities such as Ede, Ondo and Ilesha. There is the Opa river and reservoir, that serves as a water treatment facility for OAU college.

Most-observed species

• Pied Crow

  Corvus albus Statius Muller, 1776 · Aves
  22
• yellow-billed kite

  Milvus aegyptius (Gmelin, 1788) · Aves
  20
• Collared Sunbird

  Hedydipna collaris (Vieillot, 1819) · Aves
  20
• Bronze mannikin

  Lonchura cucullata (Swainson, 1837) · Aves
  19
• Village Weaver

  Ploceus cucullatus (Statius Muller, 1776) · Aves
  19
• Ethiopian Swallow

  Hirundo aethiopica Blanford, 1869 · Aves
  19
• Northern Gray-headed Sparrow

  Passer griseus (Vieillot, 1817) · Aves
  19
• Laughing Dove

  Spilopelia senegalensis (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  19