Niger vs Nigeria

Why people mix them up

Both countries are named after the Niger River, which flows through Niger before crossing Nigeria to reach the sea, so the names differ by only two letters. They share a long border, both sit in West Africa, and English speakers often pronounce "Niger" as if it were just a shortened "Nigeria". In reality they are very different places: one is a thinly populated Sahara state, the other is Africa's most populous country.

How to tell them apart

• Niger is landlocked and mostly desert; Nigeria has a long coastline on the Gulf of Guinea with the Niger Delta.
• Niger lies directly north of Nigeria, stretching deep into the Sahara towards Algeria and Libya.
• Nigeria has roughly ten times the people: well over 200 million, compared with about 26 million in Niger.
• Niger is the larger country by area, about 1.27 million km² against Nigeria's 924,000 km².
• Niger's flag is orange-white-green horizontal with an orange disc; Nigeria's is green-white-green vertical with no emblem.
• Niger's official language is French and its capital is Niamey; Nigeria's official language is English and its capital is Abuja.

Memory hook

Nigeria is the "bigger" name and the bigger population; Niger is the short name for the thin, dry country on top of it.

On the map

For Nigeria, find the big inward bend of the West African coast, the Gulf of Guinea, and tap the large country east of Benin and west of Cameroon. For Niger, move straight up from Nigeria into the Sahara and tap the big landlocked block that touches Algeria and Libya in the north. Niger is the one you can reach from Chad's western border; Nigeria is the one with the sea.