Onitsha is a city, a commercial, educational, and religious centre and river port on the eastern bank of the Niger river in Anambra State, southeastern Nigeria.In the early 1960s, before the Nigerian Civil War, the population was officially recorded as 76,000, and the town was distinctive in a number of dimensions; the great Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe characterized it as harboring an "esoteric region from which creativity sallies forth at will to manifest itself," "a zone of occult instability". Though it experienced great suffering during and after the civil war, by virtue of its still-strategic geographic position Onitsha has continued to develop, and by 2001 had an estimated population of 511,000 with a metropolitan population of 1,003,000.The indigenous people of Onitsha are Igbo and speak the Igbo language. It is worthy to note that Onicha should not be confused with the other municipalities of the same normenclature lying further east in Nigeria. Some of which are: Onicha-Uboma, Onicha-Amagunze, Onicha-Uburu, Onicha-Agu, Onicha-Nwenkwo, Onicha-EnuguEzike, Onicha Ngwa, Onicha Nkwerre etc.. On the west bank of the River Niger exists also Onicha Ugbo, Onicha Olona and Onicha Ukwuani. All of which speak Igbo as their native language.
