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Jos is a city in the Middle Belt of Nigeria. The city has a population of about 900,000 residents based on the 2006 census.〔 Popularly called "J-town", it is the administrative capital of Plateau State. The city is located on the Jos Plateau at an elevation of about high above sea level. During British colonial rule, Jos was an important centre for tin mining. In recent years it has suffered violent religious clashes between its Muslim and Christian populations in 2001, 2008, 2010, and 2011. ==History== The earliest known settlers of the land that would come to be known as Nigeria were the Nok people (circa 3000 BC), skilled artisans from around the Jos area who mysteriously vanished in the late first millennium. According to the historian Sen Luka Gwom Zangabadt,〔History of Jos and political development of Nigeria; Sen Luka Gwom Zangabadt〕 the area known as Jos today was inhabited by indigenous tribes who were mostly farmers. According to Billy J. Dudley,〔Billy J. Dudley. Parties and politics in Northern Nigeria〕 the British colonialists used direct rule for the indigenous tribes on the Jos plateau since they were not under the Fulani emirates where indirect rule was used. According to the historian Samuel N Nwabara,〔Samuel N Nwabara; The Fulani conquest and the rule of the Hausa kingdom of Northern Nigeria (1804-1900)〕 the Fulani empire controlled most of northern Nigeria, except the Plateau province and the Berom Mwagavhul, Ng as, Tiv, Jukun and Idoma tribes. It was the discovery of tin by the British that led to the influx of other tribes such as the Hausa, Igbo, Urhobo and Yoruba, thus making Jos a cosmopolitan city. According to the white paper of the commission of inquiry into the 1994 crisis, Ames, a British colonial administrator, said that the original name for Jos was Gwosh which was a village situated at the current site of the city; according to Ames, the Hausa wrongly pronounced Gwosh as Jos and it stuck.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Petition Online - Petition Online has been retired )〕 Another version was that "Jos" came from the word "Jasad" meaning body. To distinguish it from the hill tops, it was called "Jas," which was mis-pronounced by the British as "Jos." It grew rapidly after the British discovered vast tin deposits in the vicinity. Both tin and columbite were extensively mined in the area up until the 1960s. They were transported by railway to both Port Harcourt and Lagos on the coast, then exported from those ports. Jos is still often referred to as "Tin City". In 1967 it was made capital of Benue-Plateau State, becoming the capital of the new Plateau State in 1975. Jos has become an important national administrative, commercial, and tourist centre. Tin mining has led to the influx of migrants, mostly Igbos, Yorubas and Europeans, who constitute more than half of the population of Jos. This "melting pot" of race, ethnicity and religion makes Jos one of the most cosmopolitan cities in Nigeria. For this reason, Plateau State is known in Nigeria as the "home of peace and tourism." Despite this, in 2001, the city witnessed violent riots between the divided Muslim and Christian populations, in which several thousand people died. In 2004, the former governor of Plateau State, Joshua Dariye, was suspended for six months for failing to control the violence. In November 2008, clashes between Christians and Muslims killed almost 400 and wounded many. In spite of the communal clashes, visitors are surprised at the amount of activities still going on in the city. There is still an influx of people into the city and the cost of accommodation and land is still going up daily. This shows that the city is still one of the most desirable cities in Nigeria, despite the communal clashes. In January 2011 there were almost daily clashes between Christian and Muslim mobs in villages around Jos since a series of bombs had been detonated during Christmas Eve celebrations a month earlier, killing scores of people. In May 2014, a twin bomb attack in Jos killed 118 people. Between August 2013 and December 2014, a peace process was undertaken by communities living in Jos. The Jos Forum Inter-Communal Dialogue ultimately led to a "Declaration of Commitment to Peace" signed by the participating communities (Afizere, Anaguta, Berom, Fulani, Hausa, Igbo, South-South and Yoruba, as well as women who were represented as their own distinct community). On 12 December 2014 at least 30 people were killed as twin bombs exploded in the central Nigerian city of Jos 〔http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/12/30-killed-twin-bombs-nigeria-jos-elections〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Jos」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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