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Demographics

Until 1970, Ibadan was the largest city in Sub-Saharan Africa by surface area. In 1952, it was estimated that the total area of the city was approximately 103.8 km However, only 36.2 km was built up. This meant that the remaining 67 km were devoted to non-urban uses, such as farmlands, river floodplains, forest reserves and water bodies. These "non-urban land uses" disappeared in the 1960s: an aerial photograph in 1973 revealed that the urban landscape had completely spread over about 100 km. The land area increased from 136 km in 1981 to 210–240 km in 1988-89 (Areola, 1994: 101). By 2000, it is estimated that Ibadan covered 400 km. The growth of the built-up area during the second half of the 20th century (from 40 km in the 1950s to 250 km in the 1990s) shows clearly that there has been an underestimate of the total growth of the city. In the 1980s, the Ibadan-Lagos expressway generated the greatest urban sprawl (east and north of the city), followed by the Eleiyele expressway (west of the city). Since then, Ibadan city has spread further into the neighbouring local government areas of Akinyele and Egbeda in particular.