1,206-CITY ATLASSOURCE-BACKED CITY REFERENCE
Nigeria
Compare this sourced profile of Onitsha, Nigeria before planning. Stable fields identify the place; confirm current transport, access and opening details with official sources.
01What the data says — and does not say
This page separates the checked GeoNames row for Onitsha—1,553,000, Africa/Lagos, and source coordinates—from live travel claims. Those fields identify and compare the record; they do not prove current transport, accessibility, census totals, or a City Atlas Club visit.
Wikidata's localized description: A City in Anambra state Nigeria.
02This city's dataset fingerprint
The source row behind Onitsha is GeoNames ID 2326016. Its recorded administrative path is Onitsha North → Anambra → Nigeria, and GeoNames classifies the place as a second-order administrative seat. Onitsha occurs once as a primary city label in this atlas sample; the numeric ID remains the durable source key if names change. The city row itself was updated 2022-09-23; that date belongs to the source record, not to every transport or visitor detail in the real destination.
Within the fixed 1,206-record atlas, Onitsha ranks 298 by recorded population. Inside the 30 selected Nigeria entries it ranks 8; inside the 243 entries in its broad region it ranks 64. Its 1,553,000 population value is 1.67 times the 930,000 median for the country cohort and 1.72 times the 902,588 regional median. Onitsha falls between the leading tenth and quarter of this atlas's Nigeria population cohort. Onitsha's recorded value is above the country-cohort median but remains below twice that benchmark. These comparisons describe this selected dataset only; they are not current census rankings or official urban-area boundaries.
Onitsha's three nearest other atlas coordinates are Owerri at 78.973 km with 545,000 recorded people; Enugu at 85.226 km with 950,000 recorded people; Benin City at 129.914 km with 1,782,000 recorded people. The closest-to-farthest distance spread is 50.941 km. Compared with Owerri, Onitsha's recorded population is 2.85 times as large. Against Onitsha, Owerri follows Owerri Municipal → Imo State → Nigeria in the source. Its point has lower latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the same selected Nigeria cohort, uses the shared Africa/Lagos identifier, and carries first-order administrative seat rather than second-order administrative seat. Its recorded population is below Onitsha's. Against Onitsha, Enugu follows Enugu North → Enugu State → Nigeria in the source. Its point has higher latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the same selected Nigeria cohort, uses the shared Africa/Lagos identifier, and carries first-order administrative seat rather than second-order administrative seat. Its recorded population is below Onitsha's. Against Onitsha, Benin City follows Oredo → Edo State → Nigeria in the source. Its point has higher latitude and lower longitude; it belongs to the same selected Nigeria cohort, uses the shared Africa/Lagos identifier, and carries first-order administrative seat rather than second-order administrative seat. Its recorded population is above Onitsha's. Its nearest-neighbor distance ranks 610 of 1,206 from shortest to longest in the same snapshot. Onitsha's nearest-coordinate gap belongs to the wider half of atlas distances. This pattern can reveal whether other catalog references are geographically close, but it cannot establish whether a border crossing is possible or practical, or whether rail, road, fare, or journey-time connections exist. Read as one record signature, GeoNames 2326016, the coordinate pair 6.1498 / 6.7857, country rank 8 of 30, and neighbor GeoNames 2325330 at 78.973 km bind Onitsha to a reproducible comparison. That combined key distinguishes the row; it is not a recommendation or evidence of a physical connection.
Onitsha's reference point is 6.1498° north and 6.7857° east. The IANA identifier Africa/Lagos is shared by 30 city rows in this catalog, while the GeoNames class PPLA2 is shared by 341 rows. Onitsha's row carries both second- and first-order administrative labels. Onitsha's point falls in the near-equatorial coordinate band used by this atlas's row checks. Onitsha's time-zone field defines the narrower catalog cohort; its place class is shared more broadly. GeoNames supplies no elevation for Onitsha, so the profile preserves that missing value instead of guessing terrain. Together these fields form a reproducible identity check for this page, not a claim about walkability, climate or accessibility.
03Nearby atlas references
Onitsha's closest other entries in this atlas are Owerri (78.973 km), Enugu (85.226 km), Benin City (129.914 km).
04Verify before you book
Before visiting Onitsha, confirm changing decisions with current first-party sources:
Read how City Atlas Club verifies changing travel facts →05Sources and freshness
GeoNames updated the row 2022-09-23; the atlas checked the dataset 2026-08-04. Available Wikidata fields were verified in the same run.
GeoNames data: CC BY 4.0. Wikidata labels and descriptions: CC0 1.0.