SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OF UNIVERSITIES IN NIGERIA USING GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM
Keywords:
Geographic Information System;, spatial distribution;, Google Earth;, federal university, state university, private universityAbstract
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.
