Port Harcourt (Igbo: Diobu, Iguocha or Ugwuocha; Pidgin: "Po-ta-kot") is the capital of Rivers State, Nigeria. It lies along the Bonny River and is located in the Niger Delta. According to the 2006 Nigerian census Port Harcourt has a population of 1,382,592. The Mayor of Port Harcourt City is Azubuike Nmerukini. From Iguocha Port Harcourt was renamed by Frederick Lugard after Lewis Vernon Harcourt in 1913 who was the Secretary of State for the Colonies.
The area that became Port Harcourt in 1913 was originally the farmlands of the Diobu village group of the Ikwerre, a subgroup of the Igbo people. The colonial administration of Nigeria created the port to export coal from the collieries of Enugu located 151 miles (243 km) north of Port Harcourt, which it was linked to by a railway called the Eastern Line, also built by the British.
Port Harcourt was a site for World War I military operations against German Kamerun. It was once part of the Republic of Biafra which seceded from Nigeria in 1967. On May 19, 1968 Port Harcourt fell to Nigerian forces at the Capture of Port Harcourt. Commercial quantities of crude oil was discovered in Oloibiri in 1956 and Port Harcourt's economy turned to petroleum when the first shipment of Nigerian crude oil was exported through the city in 1958. Through the benefits of the Nigerian petroleum industry Port Harcourt was further developed with aspects of modernisation such as overpasses and city blocks. Oil firms that currently have offices in the city include Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron.
Port Harcourt's primary airport is the Port Harcourt International Airport located in the periphery of the city; Nigerian Air Force (NAF) base is the location of the only other airport in the city; used by commercial airlines Aero Contractors and Virgin Nigeria (now Air Nigeria) for domestic flights. The main educational establishment in the city is the University of Port Harcourt.
Read more about Port Harcourt: History, Geography and Climate, Economy and Infrastructure
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“It is by a mathematical point only that we are wise, as the sailor or the fugitive slave keeps the polestar in his eye; but that is sufficient guidance for all our life. We may not arrive at our port within a calculable period, but we would preserve the true course.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)