Description of Borno state

Borno State is the only state in Nigeria that shares borders with three different nations. It is located in the North-East geopolitical zone and is bordered by Yobe to the west, Gombe to the southwest, and Adamawa to the south. Borno State also shares portions of its eastern, northern, and northeastern borders with Cameroon, Niger, and Chad. Borno State's capital, Maiduguri, was formerly the seat of the medieval emirate of Borno, from whence the state derives its name. The previous North-Eastern State was disbanded in 1976, resulting in the creation of the state. When Yobe State separated into its own state in 1991, it originally covered the region that is presently part of that state. 

After Niger State, Borno is the state with the second-largest area out of the 36. The state is the ninth most populated, despite its size, with an estimated 5.86 million residents as of 2016. Geographically, the state is split between the semi-desert Sahelian savanna in the north, the West Sudanian savanna in the center and south, and a portion of the montane Mandara Plateau in the southeast. The Yobe River, which defines the state's boundary with Niger until it reaches the lakebed, feeds Lake Chad, which is located in the state's far northeast and is nourished by the lake's flooded savanna ecoregion. A portion of the Chad Basin National Park, a sizable national park, is located in the state's center. It is home to populations of black crowned crane, spotted hyena, patas monkey, and roan antelope, as well as sporadic herds of some of Nigeria's last remaining African bush elephants. However, a portion of the park, the Sambisa Forest, was taken over by Boko Haram during their insurgency in the early 2010s, forcing many animals to flee. Large animals weren't seen again until 2019 and 2020 when a huge herd of migrating elephants came back to Borno. 

Borno State has long been home to a variety of ethnic groups, including the Dghwede, Glavda, Guduf, Laamang, Mafa, and Mandara in the central area; the Afade, Yedina (Buduma), and Kanembu in the extreme northeast; the Waja in the extreme south; the Kyibaku, Kamwe, Kilba, Margi groups, and babur in the south; and the Kanuri and Shuwa The bulk of people in the state are Muslims (around 85%), followed by smaller minorities of Christians and traditionalists (particularly in the south), each of which makes up about 7% of the population. 

Beginning in the 700s, the Kanem Empire, which now encompasses much of modern-day Chad and modern-day Borno State, controlled the area that is now known as Borno State. The Kanem Empire's realm stretched from what is now southern Libya (Fezzan) to Borno State. After losing several conflicts, the Kanem Empire was compelled to relocate in the late 1300s. It then became the Bornu Empire before regaining its dominance and dominating the surrounding region for the following 500 years. Bornu did not start to crumble until the early 1800s, when the Fulani jihad severely undermined the Empire. During the conflicts, the Adamawa Emirate, which was part of the Sokoto Caliphate, took control of a large portion of present-day southern Borno State. A Sudanese warlord named Rabih az-Zubayr took control of the Empire around 80 years later, reigned there until French soldiers assassinated him in the Battle of Kousséri in 1900, and then left it in his wake. The Adamawa Emirate also fell to colonial forces, with Germany and the British Empire winning the wars in Adamawa. The Adamawa Emirate and Rabih's holdings (later reconstructed as the Borno Emirate) were then split between several colonial powers, with Germany and the British Empire receiving the present-day Borno State. 

The British-ruled territory was absorbed into the Northern Nigeria Protectorate, which ultimately amalgamated into British Nigeria before becoming independent as Nigeria in 1960. Deutsch-Bornu was a component of German Kamerun up until allied forces invaded and conquered Kamerun during the Kamerun campaign of World War I. The German-controlled area (territory along the contemporary boundary with Cameroon) became Deutsch-Bornu. Following the war, the area that is now the eastern edge of Borno State was a part of the Northern Cameroons inside the British Cameroons until 1961, when a referendum resulted in the unification with Nigeria. Before the region was divided in 1967 and the area became a part of the North-Eastern State, the present-day Borno State was once a part of the Northern Region upon independence. On February 3, 1976, Borno State and eleven other states were created following the division of the North-Eastern State. An amalgamation of LGAs in the state's western region was created as the new Yobe State fifteen years after the state's inception. Boko Haram started its insurgency in 2009, and a few years later, in the early 2000s, the state became its focal point. The insurgency grew significantly between 2012 and 2015, and a large portion of the state came under the group's control. This caused millions of people to be ejected from their homes and helped the group become the deadliest terrorist organization in the world in 2015. After a massive international offensive in 2015 and internal strife between the original Boko Haram group and the breakaway Islamic State – West Africa Province, the group was driven from its strongholds into the Sambisa Forest and some islands in Lake Chad by 2017. Despite this, terrorists continue to pose a threat throughout the state with regular attacks on both civilian and military targets.

Before the Boko Haram insurgency, the rural Borno State economy, which is based in part on agriculture, was highly dependent on cattle and crops, while the state capital Maiduguri is a significant regional trade and service hub. Borno has the thirteenth lowest Human Development Index in the nation following years of the insurgency hindering development and driving farmers out of rural areas in the state, but since the violence has started to subside a little bit since 2016, development has resumed.