Yoruba forms one of the three city groups of West Africa; another is
around Timbuktu, and a third in the Hausa states. The Timbuktu cities have
from five to fifteen hundred towns, while the Yoruba cities have one
hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants and more. The Hausa cities are many
of them important, but few are as large as the Yoruba cities and they lie
farther apart. AH three centers, however, are connected with the Niger,
and the group nearest the coast--that is, the Yoruba cities--has the
greatest numbers of towns, the most developed architectural styles, and
the oldest institutions.

The Yoruba cities are not only different from the Sudanese in population,
but in their social relations. The Sudanese cities were influenced from
the desert and the Mediterranean, and form nuclei of larger surrounding
monarchial states. The Yoruba cities, on the other hand, remained
comparatively autonomous organizations down to modern times, and their
relative importance changed from time to time without developing an
imperialistic idea or subordinating the group to one overpowering city.

This social and industrial state of the Yorubas formerly spread and
wielded great influence. We find Yoruba reaching out and subduing states
like Nupe toward the northward. But the industrial democracy and city
autonomy of Yoruba lent itself indifferently to conquest, and the state
fell eventually a victim to the fanatical Fula Mohammedans and was made a
part of the modern sultanate of Gando.

West of Yoruba on the lower courses of the Niger is Benin, an ancient
state which in 1897 traced its twenty-three kings back one thousand years;
some legends even named a line of sixty kings. It seems probable that
Benin developed the imperial idea and once extended its rule into the
Congo valley. Later and also to the west of the Yoruba come two states