Ile-Ife, town, Osun state, southwestern Nigeria. The town lies at the intersection of roads from Ibadan (40 miles [64 km] west), Ilesha, and Ondo. It is one of the larger centres and probably the oldest town of the Yoruba people. Considered by the Yoruba to be a holy city and the legendary birthplace of humankind, it was held to have been founded by a son of the deity Oduduwa and was certainly the capital of a well-established kingdom (probably named for Ifa, the god of divination) by the early 11th century. By the late 12th or early 13th century, its artisans were producing the naturalistic terra-cotta heads and bronze pieces made by the cire perdue (“lost-wax”) process for which the Ife kingdom is now well known. Ife had great political and cultural influence over the Edo kingdom of Benin to the southeast.
Although Benin City and Old Oyo (Katunga) became the seats of political kingdoms more important than Ife, the town remained the chief religious centre for the Yoruba. In return for the ida oranyan (“sword of Oranyan”)—a symbol of spiritual authority named after a historical ruler of Benin and Oyo and given to an alaafin (alafin; “king”) of Oyo upon his coronation—the alaafin had to promise not to attack Ife. When Alaafin Awole tried to raid Ife territory for slaves in 1793, it brought severe internal resistance and the series of wars that led to the collapse of the Oyo empire. Although Ife managed to avoid the attacks by the Muslim Fulani that struck other parts of Yorubaland, it was weakened in the 1820s through struggles for control of the internal slave trade with Owu, to the southwest. After an ooni (oni; “king”) of Ife allowed Yoruban Oyo refugees from the Ilorin Fulani conquest to build the walled town of Modakeke just outside Ife, he was poisoned. After Ife declared war (1882) against Ibadan, its forces were repulsed when they attacked Modakeke. Shortly afterward a combined army from Ibadan and Modakeke nearly destroyed Ife.
In the centre of modern Ile-Ife is the afin (“palace”) of the present ooni, the spiritual head of the Yoruba people, who has custody of the sacred staff of Oranmiyan (Oranyan), an 18-foot (5.5-metre) granite monolith in the shape of an elephant’s tusk. The palace compound is also the site of the Ife Museum (1954), which contains a collection of cire-perdue bronze castings and terra-cotta sculptures that was partly acquired by the German archaeologist Leo Frobenius in 1910 and subsequently expanded through excavations at the Wunmonije compound (1938–39) and at nearby Ita Yemoo (1957).
Obafemi Awolowo University (formerly the University of Ife) was founded in 1961, with classes beginning the following year. One of Nigeria’s major universities, it is located north of the town; it operates a teaching hospital and has a major library. The affiliated Institute of Agricultural Research and Training operates the Moor Plantation for agricultural research and has the country’s largest specialized agricultural library. Institutes of education (operating a mobile library service) and physical education are also centred in the town and affiliated with the university. Ile-Ife is the seat of the Historical Society of Nigeria (1955) and has several teacher-training colleges. In 1948 Ife was the site of the inaugural Conference of the Society of the Descendants of Oduduwa, a group of Yoruba nationalists who formed the core of the Action Group, a national political party.
Ile-Ife is a major collecting point for cocoa and cotton grown in the surrounding area. Palm oil and kernels, yams, cassava (manioc), corn (maize), pumpkins, and kola nuts are cultivated for local markets. Ile-Ife’s inhabitants are primarily town-dwelling farmers. Pop. (2006) local government area, 644,373.