Driving in and out of Jos, traffic encounters very steep and windy bends and mountainous sceneries typical of the plateau, from which the state derives its name.

During the period of British colonial rule, Jos became an important centre for tin mining after large deposits of cassiterite, the main ore for the metal, were discovered.

The earliest known settlers of the land that would come to be known as Nigeria were the Nok people (c. 1000 BC), skilled artisans from around the Jos area who mysteriously vanished in the late first millennium.

[4] According to the historian Sen Luka Gwom Zangabadt,[5] the area known as Jos today was inhabited by indigenous ethnic groups who were mostly farmers.

[6] According to the historian Samuel N Nwabara,[7] the Fulani empire controlled most of northern Nigeria, except the Plateau province and the Berom, Ngas, Tiv, Jukun and Idoma ethnic groups.

It was the discovery of tin by the British that led to the influx of other ethnic groups such as the Hausa from the north, southeastern Igbo, and Yoruba from the country's southwest.

According to the white paper of the commission of inquiry into the 1894 crisis, Ames, a British colonial administrator, said that the original name for Jos was Gwosh in the Izere language (spoken by the Afusari, the first settlers in the area), which was a village situated at the current site of the city; according to Ames, the Hausa, who arrived there after, wrongly pronounced Gwosh as "Jos" and it stuck.

Excellent footage of Jos in 1936 including the tin mines, local people and the colonial population is held by the Cinema Museum in London [ref HM0172].

In 1956, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II together with her consort Prince Philip had a weekend stopover to rest at Jishe during her Nigeria tour.

Situated almost at the geographical centre of Nigeria and about 179 kilometres (111 miles) from Abuja, the nation's capital, Jos is linked by road, rail and air to the rest of the country.

[12] These cooler temperatures have, from colonial times until the present day, made Jos a favourite holiday location for both tourists and expatriates based in Nigeria.

Covering roughly 3 square miles (7.8 km2) of savannah bush and established in 1972 under the administration of then Governor of Benue-Plateau Joseph Gomwalk in alliance with a mandate by the then Organisation of African Unity to African heads of state to earmark one-third of their landmass to establish conservation areas in each of their countries, It has since then become a major attraction in the state, attracting tourists from within and outside the country.

The park has become a home to various species of wildlife including Lions, Rock pythons, marabou storks, Baboons, Honey Badgers, Camels as well as variant flora.

It also incorporates the Museum of Traditional Nigerian Architecture with life-size replicas of a variety of buildings, from the walls of Kano and the Mosque at Zaria to a Tiv village.

A 40,000-seat capacity located along Farin-Gada road which has become home to the Plateau United Football Club, Current champions of The Nigerian Professional League.

Other local enterprises include food processing, beer brewing, and the manufacture of cosmetics, soap, rope, jute bags, and furniture.