Efik founded the Akwa Akpa (Old Calabar) city-state. The latter become a British protectorate in 1884, as the capital of the Oil Rivers Protectorate; but it was in the early 1900s that the Britons gained formal control of the entire area. Around the same time, the protectorate (now renamed the Niger Coast Protectorate) was incorporated into the Southern Nigeria Protectorate, which later merged into British Nigeria. After the merger, much of the modern-day Cross River state has become a center of anti-colonial resistance during the Women's War and trade,through the international seaport at Calabar. After independence in 1960, the area now regarded as Cross River state was a part of the post-independence Eastern Region until 1967, when the region was split and the area became part of the South-Eastern state. Less than two months afterwards, the Igbo-majority of the former Eastern Region attempted to secede as the state of Biafra; in the three-year long Nigerian Civil War. Calabar and its port was hard-fought over in Operation Tiger Claw, while the people from Cross River state were persecuted by the Biafran forces as they were mainly non-Igbos. At the war's end and the reunification of Nigeria, the South-Eastern state was reformed until 1976, when it was renamed Cross River state. Eleven years later, Cross River state was divided with western Cross River being broken off to form the new Akwa Ibom state. The state formerly contained the oil-producing Bakassi Peninsula, but it was ceded to Cameroon under the terms of the Greentree Agreement. As an agricultural state, the Cross River state's economy partially relies on crops, such as cocoyam, rubber, oil palm, yam, cocoa, cashews, and plantain crops, along with fishing. Key minor industries involve tourism in and around the wildlife reserves along with the historic Ikom Monoliths site, Calabar Carnival, and Obudu Mountain Resort. Cross River state has the joint-thirteenth highest Human Development Index in the country and numerous institutions of tertiary education. Geography Cross River state derives its name from the Cross River, which passes through the state. It is a coastal state located in the Niger Delta region, and occupies 20,156 square kilometers. It shares boundaries with Benue state to the north, Ebonyi and Abia states to the west, to the east by Sud-Ouest Province in Cameroon, and to the south by Akwa-Ibom and the Atlantic Ocean. The state is made up of 18 Local Government Area Councils.