All Yoruba towns with very few exceptions are built on one uniform plan, and the origin of most of them is more or less the same, and all have certain identical features. A cluster of huts around the farmstead of an enterprising farmer may be the starting point: perhaps a halting place for refreshments in a long line of march between two towns. In any case it is one individual that first attracts others to the spot; if the site be on the highway to a large town, or in a caravan route, so much the better; the wives of the farmers ever ready to cater refreshments for wearied travellers render the spot in time a recognised halting place: the more distant from a town, the more essential it necessarily must be as a resting place; if a popular resort, a market soon springs up in the place, into which neighbouring farmers bring their wares for sale, and weekly fairs held: market sheds are built all over the place and it becomes a sort of caravanserai or sleeping place for travellers.

As soon as houses begin to spring up and a village or hamlet formed, the necessity for order and control becomes apparent.