How Lagos
was made.
A growing map of the things this city was built out of — and the decisions underneath them. Every number here is sourced, and you can check it.
Schematic, not to scale. The amber line is the Third Mainland Bridge; the two short crossings west of it are the Carter and Eko bridges.
The bridge everyone crosses and nobody looks at
Eleven kilometres over a lagoon, fourteen years to build, and eight of them with nothing happening at all.
Apapa
The port that decided where everything else went.
The cement question
A country with more capacity than it can use, and a price that went up anyway.
Eko Atlantic
Land that did not exist, and what it is holding back.
Carter Bridge
The first crossing, and the city it made possible.
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Sponge pays for it. Films made about these subjects may carry a sponsor; where a film appears here, its funder is named at the point it appears. The page itself is not for sale.
Every number is checkable
Tap any highlighted figure to see where it came from — the publisher, the date, the link. Where sources disagree, we show you both rather than picking the tidier one.
It gets corrected in public
Figures go stale and mistakes happen. When one changes we change it here and log what changed, with the date. Nothing is quietly edited.
It grows
Each entry is a place on the map. One is an article. Twelve is an argument about how this city got made.