Benin is a narrow country in West Africa, stretching from a short Atlantic coastline northward to the dry savanna of the Sahel. It was the seat of the powerful and sophisticated Kingdom of Dahomey, famous for its wealth, its art, and its corps of women warriors, but also notorious as a centre of the Atlantic slave trade along the stretch of coast once called the Slave Coast. It is also the birthplace of the religion known in the wider world as Vodun, or voodoo.
For more than two centuries the region was dominated by the Kingdom of Dahomey, a highly organised and militarised state that grew rich and powerful, in part through capturing and selling people into the Atlantic slave trade that flourished on its coast. The kingdom was famous for the Dahomey Amazons, an elite all-female military regiment. France conquered Dahomey in the 1890s and ruled it as a colony. The country gained independence in 1960, and after a period of Marxist rule, it adopted multiparty democracy in 1990.
According to the traditions of the royal house of Dahomey, the line of kings descended from the union of a princess of a neighbouring people and a leopard, an animal of great power and prestige, from which the founding ancestor, Agasu, was born. The leopard remained a sacred royal symbol. The story gave the dynasty a fearsome and supernatural origin, but as literal history the descent from a leopard belongs to legend and royal myth rather than the documented record.
Benin is a long, narrow country running inland from the sea. Its short Atlantic coast is fringed with lagoons and sandbars, behind which lies a fertile plateau, giving way northward to wooded savanna and then to drier, hillier country in the Sahel along the northern borders, including the Atakora mountains. The Niger River touches its far northeastern corner. This north-south span gives the small country a range of climates and landscapes, from humid tropical coast to dry savanna.
The flag of Benin has a vertical green band at the hoist and two horizontal bands of yellow over red. These are the pan-African colours adopted by many newly independent nations: the green is often said to represent hope and the palm groves of the south, the yellow the savanna and the country's wealth, and the red the courage and blood of those who fought for independence. The distinctive arrangement gives the flag a recognisable look among African banners.
Benin is religiously diverse, and it holds a special place as the homeland of Vodun, the traditional religion known abroad as voodoo, which originated here and remains widely practised, with its deities, shrines, and festivals an important part of the culture. Alongside it, Christianity, both Catholic and Protestant, is strong, especially in the south, and Islam is widespread in the north, a legacy of trans-Saharan contact. These faiths often coexist and blend, and Benin officially celebrates a national Vodun holiday.
Beninese cuisine is based on starchy staples and rich, often spicy sauces. In the south, maize is made into a dough or porridge, while in the north yams and other tubers are pounded into the smooth dish known as fufu, eaten with sauces of vegetables, leaves, peanuts, or okra and accompanied by meat or fish. Grilled and fried fish from the coast and lagoons, beans, and plenty of chili and palm oil characterise a food culture shaped by the produce of the land and sea.
Agriculture is the foundation of Benin's economy and the livelihood of most of its people. Cotton is by far the most important cash crop and the leading export, so central that the country is among Africa's significant producers, while food crops such as maize, yams, cassava, and beans feed the population. Palm oil, cashews, and pineapples are also grown, and fishing in the coastal lagoons and the sea is important. Much farming remains small-scale and reliant on the seasonal rains.
The Kingdom of Dahomey, with its formidable army and its central role in the Atlantic slave trade, and the birth of the Vodun religion, are defining elements of Benin's heritage. After French conquest and independence in 1960, the country experienced repeated coups and a period of Marxist-Leninist rule before, in 1990, it carried out one of the earliest and most peaceful transitions to multiparty democracy in Africa, a change once held up as a model for the continent.
Benin has a population of around 13 million people, made up of many ethnic groups, the largest being the Fon and the Yoruba in the south and others such as the Bariba in the north, speaking a range of languages with French as the official tongue. The population is young and concentrated in the southern part of the country near the coast, where the largest city and economic capital, Cotonou, lies, while the official capital is the smaller town of Porto-Novo.
