Ikere-Ekiti, also known as Ikere or Ikerre, is a city in

Ekiti State Ekiti () is a state in southwestern Nigeria, bordered to the North by Kwara State for 61 km, to the Northeast by Kogi State for 92 km, to the South and Southeast by Ondo State, and to the West by Osun State for 84 km. Named for the Ekiti ...

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

. It is an

agricultural Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created f ...

and mine centre. According to the 1963 and 1991 census, the population was 114,780 and 60,257 respectively, but the 2006

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

recorded it to be 147,355.

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

estimate

History

Oral tradition claims that a man by the name of Aladeselu, who is said to have originated from Uselu, a town close to Benin, created Ikere. Itinerant immigrants migrated from one location to another as it was customary in those days in quest of a suitable location to dwell.

Geography

Ikere LGA has a total size of 202

square In geometry, a square is a regular polygon, regular quadrilateral. It has four straight sides of equal length and four equal angles. Squares are special cases of rectangles, which have four equal angles, and of rhombuses, which have four equal si ...

kilometers The kilometre ( SI symbol: km; or ), spelt kilometer in American and Philippine English, is a unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), equal to one thousand metres (kilo- being the SI prefix for ). It is the preferred measu ...

and is distinguished by several hills, including the Orole and Olosunta hills. The area's average annual temperature is 27 degrees

Celsius The degree Celsius is the unit of temperature on the Celsius temperature scale "Celsius temperature scale, also called centigrade temperature scale, scale based on 0 ° for the melting point of water and 100 ° for the boiling point ...

, and its total annual

precipitation In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls from clouds due to gravitational pull. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, rain and snow mixed ("sleet" in Commonwe ...

is estimated to be 1850 mm.

Economy

Ikere LGA is an agricultural area notable for the cultivation of a variety of

crops A crop is a plant that can be grown and harvested extensively for profit or subsistence. In other words, a crop is a plant or plant product that is grown for a specific purpose such as food, fibre, or fuel. When plants of the same species a ...

including

maize Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago from wild teosinte. Native American ...

, okro,

oil palm ''Elaeis'' () is a genus of palms, called oil palms, containing two species, native to Africa and the Americas. They are used in commercial agriculture in the production of palm oil. Description Mature palms are single-stemmed, and can gro ...

, yam, and

cassava ''Manihot esculenta'', common name, commonly called cassava, manioc, or yuca (among numerous regional names), is a woody shrub of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, native to South America, from Brazil, Paraguay and parts of the Andes. Although ...

. The LGA also has a number of markets that offer venues for the trade of a variety of goods and services.

Tailoring A tailor is a person who makes or alters clothing, particularly in men's clothing. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the term to the thirteenth century. History Although clothing construction goes back to prehistory, there is evidence of ...

, blacksmithing, and the care and raising of domestic animals are additional significant economic activity in the Ikere LGA.

Climate

In Ikere-Ekiti, the dry season is hot,

muggy Humidity is the concentration of water vapor present in the air. Water vapor, the gaseous state of water, is generally invisible to the human eye. Humidity indicates the likelihood for precipitation, dew, or fog to be present. Humidity depen ...

, and partly cloudy whereas the wet season is warm, oppressive, and

overcast Overcast or overcast weather, as defined by the World Meteorological Organization, is the meteorological condition of clouds obscuring at least 95% of the sky. However, the total cloud cover must not be entirely due to obscuring phenomena near ...

. The

temperature Temperature is a physical quantity that quantitatively expresses the attribute of hotness or coldness. Temperature is measurement, measured with a thermometer. It reflects the average kinetic energy of the vibrating and colliding atoms making ...

rarely drops below 58°F or rises over 95°F throughout the year, usually fluctuating between 64°F and 90°F. From January 22 to March 30, the hot season, with an average daily high temperature exceeding 88°F, lasts for 2.2 months. Ikere-Ekiti experiences its hottest month of the year in March, with an average high of 88°F and low of 72°F. From June 15 to October 12, the chilly season, which has an average daily high temperature below 82°F, lasts for 3.9 months. In Ikere-Ekiti, August is the coldest month of the year, with average lows of 69°F and highs of 81°F.

References

Local Government Areas in Ekiti State Towns in Yorubaland {{Ekiti-geo-stub