Official Maps in Local Administration: A Brief Look at Inner and Outer Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Ibadan, Southwest Nigeria

Abstract

Official maps in the state and local administrations are integral in the definition of administrative geographies. I argue that place-making through the ontogenetic status of maps might contribute to the lack of eagerness to update official maps used in local administrations in Southwest Nigeria. The case of Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Ibadan city and its immediate hinterland exemplifies this situation. In this study, I employed maps and ethnographic data in ethnohistorical and iconographic approaches to explore briefly the conditions of state cartography and to have a closer look at the visualised space of the LGAs. The findings show that the represented space of LGAs is based on earlier large-scale state maps and mapping. Nonetheless, in the inner and outer LGAs of Ibadan, these outdated official maps continue to trigger place sense-making that seems indifferent to the need for updated maps. The paper concludes that although the map currency of local geographies is a challenge for local administration, the local map culture highlights that cartographic materiality and performance have a considerable impact on the continued use of the outdated map