Benin

Benin is a West African country on the Bight of Benin, between Togo and Nigeria, with Burkina Faso and Niger to the north. Porto-Novo is the capital, Cotonou the seat of government and largest city, and French the official language, while Fon, Bariba, Yoruba and Dendi are widely spoken. The country covers 112,622 km² (43,484 sq mi).

Coastal city-states of the Aja and Yoruba peoples and chiefdoms of the Bariba inland shared the region before the Fon founded the Kingdom of Dahomey on the Abomey plateau in the 17th century. By 1727 King Agaja had brought the coastal towns of Allada and Ouidah under Dahomey, and its royal guard of women soldiers, the Mino, became known across Europe. France made the territory part of French West Africa in the 1890s as French Dahomey. Independence came on 1 August 1960 under Hubert Maga, and in 1975 the country took the name Benin, after the bight on its coast.

A new constitution of 1990 made Benin a multiparty presidential republic, and in 1991 Mathieu Kérékou lost an election to Nicéphore Soglo and stepped down, a first for a president on the African mainland. Cotton is the main export, earning most official export income, along with cashews, shea butter and cooking oil, and the port of Cotonou is a major source of revenue. In 2022 France returned 26 pieces of sacred art to Benin, 129 years after colonial forces took them.

Ouidah on the coast is the spiritual center of Vodun, a faith practiced by many Beninese, and the Atakora range rises to Mont Sokbaro at 658 m (2,159 ft). Pendjari National Park in the north, together with the W and Arli parks across the borders, shelters elephants, hippos and the largest lion population of West Africa. Félix Couchoro wrote the first Beninese novel in 1929, and local music blends folk rhythms with highlife and Congolese rumba.