Al-Hikmah University Journal

Geographic Information System (GIS) has become a powerful tool in the analysis of spatial patterns and offers potential applications to the analysis of university location. This research presents analyzes the spatial distribution of universities in Nigeria. The data for the universities were sourced from the website of the National University Commission (NUC) and the university coordinates were gotten from Google Earth. Data were analyzed using ArcMap 10.8 and Microsoft Excel. The study identified 50 federal (22.7%), 59 state (26.8%) and 111 private (50.5%) universities in Nigeria. The spatial distribution shows that universities are not distributed evenly across the country and are largely concentrated in the southern part of Nigeria. Kaduna State has the highest number of federal universities (3), Delta State has the highest number of state universities (4) and Ogun State has the highest number of private universities (13). The least number of universities were established in 1940-1950 and 1951-1960 while the highest was established in 2011-2020. This study has significant implications for the educational accessibility of Nigerians seeking to attend university and the findings can be used to inform the planning and policy decisions that are related to the location of universities in Nigeria.