The Yoruba reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Yoruba

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The Yorùbá are the second largest ethnic group in Nigeria, comprising approximately 20 percent of that country's total population, and numbering about 30 million individuals throughout the region of West Africa. While the majority of the Yorùbá live largely in the south-west of Nigeria, there are also substantial Yorùbá communities in Benin, Togo, Sierra Leone, Cuba and Brazil.

The Yorùbá are the main ethnic group in the states of Ekiti, Kwara, Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Osun,Kogi, Edo(Akoko Edo), and Oyo; they also constitute a sizable proportion of the citizens of the Republic of Benin. The majority of Yorùbá people are Christians, with the Church of Nigeria (Anglican), Catholic, Pentecostal, Methodist, and Indigenous churches having the largest memberships. Moslems comprise about a quarter of the Yoruba population, with the traditional Yorùbá religion accounting for the rest. The Yorùbá were the most urbanized Africans in the precolonial era, and have a history of town-dwelling that goes back to 500 A.D.

The chief Yorùbá cities are Lagos, Ibadan, Abeokuta, Akure, Ilorin, Ogbomoso, Ondo, Ota, Shagamu, Iseyin, Osogbo, Ilesha, Oyo and Ilé-Ifè.

See also: Yorùbá language

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