![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/09\/Benin-on-the-Globe-300x279.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>The official language of Benin is French. However, indigenous languages such as Fon<\/a> and Yoruba<\/a> are commonly spoken. The largest religious group in Benin is Roman Catholicism, followed closely by Islam, Vodun<\/a> and Protestantism. Benin is a member of the United Nations<\/a>, the African Union<\/a>, the Economic Community of West African States<\/a>, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation<\/a>, the South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone<\/a>, La Francophonie<\/a>, the Community of Sahel-Saharan States<\/a>, the African Petroleum Producers Association<\/a> and the Niger Basin Authority.<\/a><\/p>\n From the 17th to the 19th century, the main political entities in the area were the Kingdom of Dahomey<\/a>, along with the city-state of Porto-Novo, and a large area with many different nations to the north. This region was referred to as the Slave Coast<\/a> from as early as the 17th century due to the large number of enslaved people who were shipped to the New World during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade<\/a>. After enslavement was abolished, France took over the country and renamed it French Dahomey. In 1960, Dahomey gained full independence from France. The sovereign state has had a tumultuous history since then, with many different democratic governments, military coups, and military governments.<\/p>\n A Marxist\u2013Leninist state<\/a> called the People’s Republic of Benin existed between 1975 and 1990. In 1991, it was replaced by the current multi-party Republic of Benin.<\/p>\n During the colonial period and at independence, the country was known as Dahomey. On 30 November 1975, it was renamed to Benin, after the body of water on which the country lies\u2014the Bight of Benin. This had been named by Europeans after the Benin Empire<\/a> in present-day Nigeria. The country of Benin has no connection to Benin City<\/a> in modern Nigeria, nor to the Benin bronzes<\/a>. The form “Benin” is the result of a Portuguese corruption of the city of Ubinu.<\/p>\n The new name, Benin, was chosen for its neutrality. Dahomey was the name of the former Fon Kingdom of Dahomey, which was limited to most of the southern third of the present country and therefore did not represent Porto-Novo (a rival Yoruba state in the south), central Benin (which is also dominated by the Yoruba), the multi-ethnic northwestern sector Atakora<\/a>, nor the Bariba<\/a> Kingdom of Borgu<\/a>, which covered the northeastern district.<\/p>\n The current country of Benin combines three areas which had distinctly different political systems and ethnicities prior to French colonial control. Before 1700, there were a few important city-states along the coast (primarily of the Aja<\/a> ethnic group, but also including Yoruba and Gbe<\/a> peoples) and a mass of tribal regions inland (composed of Bariba, Mahi, Gedevi, and Kabye peoples). The Oyo Empire<\/a>, located primarily to the east of modern Benin, was the most significant large-scale military force in the region. It regularly conducted raids and exacted tribute from the coastal kingdoms and the tribal regions. The situation changed in the 1600s and early 1700s as the Kingdom of Dahomey, consisting mostly of Fon people<\/a>, was founded on the Abomey plateau<\/a> and began taking over areas along the coast. By 1727, king Agaja<\/a> of the Kingdom of Dahomey had conquered the coastal cities of Allada<\/a> and Whydah<\/a>, but it had become a tributary of the Oyo empire and did not directly attack the Oyo allied city-state of Porto-Novo. The rise of the kingdom of Dahomey, the rivalry between the kingdom and the city of Porto-Novo, and the continued tribal politics of the northern region, persisted into the colonial and post-colonial periods.<\/p>\n The Dahomey Kingdom was known for its culture and traditions. Young boys were often apprenticed to older soldiers, and taught the kingdom’s military customs until they were old enough to join the army. Dahomey was also famous for instituting an elite female soldier corps, called Ahosi<\/a>, i.e. the king’s wives, or Mino, “our mothers” in the Fon language Fongbe, and known by many Europeans as the Dahomean Amazons<\/a>. This emphasis on military preparation and achievement earned Dahomey the nickname of “black Sparta<\/a>” from European observers and 19th-century explorers such as Sir Richard Burton<\/a>.<\/p>\n The kings of Dahomey sold their war captives into transatlantic slavery. They also had a practice of killing war captives in a ceremony known as the Annual Customs<\/a>. By about 1750, the King of Dahomey was earning an estimated \u00a3250,000 per year by selling African captives to European slave-traders.<\/p>\n Though the leaders of Dahomey appear to have initially resisted the slave trade, it flourished in the region of Dahomey for almost three hundred years, beginning in 1472 with a trade agreement with Portuguese merchants. The area was named the “Slave Coast” because of this flourishing trade. Court protocols, which demanded that a portion of war captives from the kingdom’s many battles be decapitated, decreased the number of enslaved people exported from the area. The number went from 102,000 people per decade in the 1780s to 24,000 per decade by the 1860s.<\/p>\n The decline was partly due to the Slave Trade Act 1807<\/a> banning the trans-Atlantic slave trade by Britain and the United States following in 1808, followed by other countries. This decline continued until 1885, when the last slave ship departed from the coast of the modern Benin Republic bound for Brazil<\/a> in South America<\/a>, which had yet to abolish slavery. The capital’s name Porto-Novo is of Portuguese origin, meaning “New Port”. It was originally developed as a port for the slave trade.<\/p>\n By the middle of the nineteenth century, Dahomey had begun to weaken and lose its status as the regional power. This enabled the French to take over the area in 1892. In 1899, the French included the land called French Dahomey within the larger French West Africa colonial region.<\/p>\n In 1958, France granted autonomy to the Republic of Dahomey, and full independence on 1 August 1960, which is celebrated each year as Independence Day, a national holiday. The president who led the country to independence was Hubert Maga<\/a>.<\/p>\n For the next twelve years after 1960, ethnic strife contributed to a period of turbulence. There were several coups and regime changes, with the figures of Hubert Maga, Sourou Apithy<\/a>, Justin Ahomad\u00e9gb\u00e9,<\/a> and \u00c9mile Derlin Zinsou<\/a> dominating; the first three each represented a different area and ethnicity of the country. These three agreed to form a Presidential Council<\/a> after violence marred the 1970 elections.<\/p>\n On 7 May 1972, Maga ceded power to Ahomad\u00e9gb\u00e9. On 26 October 1972, Lt. Col. Mathieu K\u00e9r\u00e9kou<\/a> overthrew the ruling triumvirate, becoming president and stating that the country would not “burden itself by copying foreign ideology, and wants neither Capitalism, Communism, nor Socialism”. On 30 November 1974 however, he announced that the country was officially Marxist<\/a>, under control of the Military Council of the Revolution (CMR), which nationalized the petroleum industry and banks. On 30 November 1975, he renamed the country to the People’s Republic of Benin.<\/p>\n The CMR was dissolved in 1979, and K\u00e9r\u00e9kou arranged show elections in which he was the only allowed candidate. Establishing relations with China<\/a>, North Korea<\/a>, and Libya<\/a>, he put nearly all businesses and economic activities under state control, causing foreign investment in Benin to dry up. K\u00e9r\u00e9kou attempted to reorganize education, pushing his own aphorisms such as “Poverty is not a fatality”, resulting in a mass exodus of teachers, along with numerous other professionals. The regime financed itself by contracting to take nuclear waste, first from the Soviet Union and later from France.<\/p>\n In 1980, K\u00e9r\u00e9kou converted to Islam and changed his first name to Ahmed. He changed his name back after claiming to be a born-again Christian. In 1989, riots broke out when the regime did not have enough money to pay its army. The banking system collapsed. Eventually, K\u00e9r\u00e9kou renounced Marxism, and a convention forced K\u00e9r\u00e9kou to release political prisoners and arrange elections. Marxism\u2013Leninism was abolished as the nation’s form of government.<\/p>\n The country’s name was officially changed to the Republic of Benin on 1 March 1990, after the newly formed government’s constitution was completed.<\/p>\n In a 1991 election, K\u00e9r\u00e9kou lost to Nic\u00e9phore Soglo<\/a>. K\u00e9r\u00e9kou returned to power after winning the 1996 vote. In 2001, a closely fought election resulted in K\u00e9r\u00e9kou winning another term, after which his opponents claimed election irregularities.<\/p>\n In 1999, K\u00e9r\u00e9kou issued a national apology for the substantial role that Africans had played in the Atlantic slave trade.<\/p>\n K\u00e9r\u00e9kou and former president Soglo did not run in the 2006 elections, as both were barred by the constitution’s restrictions on age and total terms of candidates.<\/p>\n On 5 March 2006, an election<\/a> was held that was considered free and fair. It resulted in a runoff between Yayi Boni<\/a> and Adrien Houngb\u00e9dji<\/a>. The runoff election was held on 19 March and was won by Boni, who assumed office on 6 April. The success of the fair multi-party elections in Benin won praise internationally. Boni was reelected in 2011<\/a>, taking 53.18% of the vote in the first round\u2014enough to avoid a runoff election. He was the first president to win an election without a runoff since the restoration of democracy in 1991.<\/p>\n In the March 2016 presidential elections<\/a>, in which Boni Yayi was barred by the constitution from running for a third term, businessman Patrice Talon<\/a> won the second round with 65.37% of the vote, defeating investment banker and former Prime Minister Lionel Zinsou<\/a>. Talon was sworn in on 6 April 2016. Speaking on the same day that the Constitutional Court confirmed the results, Talon said that he would “first and foremost tackle constitutional reform”, discussing his plan to limit presidents to a single term of five years in order to combat “complacency”. He also said that he planned to slash the size of the government from 28 to 16 members.<\/p>\n Benin is a narrow, north-south strip of land in West Africa. Benin is bounded by Togo to the west, Burkina Faso and Niger to the north, Nigeria to the east, and the Bight of Benin to the south. The distance from the Niger River<\/a> in the north to the Atlantic Ocean in the south is about 404 miles. Although the coastline measures 75 miles, the country measures about 202 miles at its widest point.<\/p>\n Benin shows little variation in elevation and can be divided into four areas from the south to the north, starting with the low-lying, sandy, coastal plain which is, at most, 6.2 miles wide. It is marshy and dotted with lakes and lagoons communicating with the ocean. Behind the coast lies the Guinean forest-savanna mosaic<\/a>-covered plateaus of southern Benin, which are split by valleys running north to south along the Couffo<\/a>, Zou<\/a>, and Ou\u00e9m\u00e9 Rivers.<\/a><\/p>\n An area of flat land dotted with rocky hills whose altitude seldom reaches 1,312 feet extends around Nikki and Save.<\/p>\n A range of mountains extends along the northwest border and into Togo; these are the Atacora<\/a>. The highest point, Mont Sokbaro<\/a>, is at 2,159 feet. Benin has fallow fields, mangroves<\/a>, and remnants of large sacred forests. In the rest of the country, the savanna is covered with thorny scrub and dotted with huge baobab<\/a> trees. Some forests line the banks of rivers. In the north and the northwest of Benin, the Reserve du W du Niger<\/a> and Pendjari National Park<\/a> attract tourists eager to see elephants, lions, antelopes, hippos, and monkeys. Pendjari National Park together with the bordering Parks Arli<\/a> and W<\/a> in Burkina Faso and Niger are among the most important strongholds for the endangered West African lion<\/a>. With an estimated 356 lions, W-Arli-Pendjari harbors the largest remaining population of lions in West Africa. Historically Benin has served as habitat for the endangered painted hunting dog<\/a>, Lycaon pictus<\/em>; however, this canid is thought to have been locally extirpated.<\/p>\n The economy of Benin is dependent on subsistence agriculture, cotton production, and regional trade. Cotton accounts for 40% of the GDP and roughly 80% of official export receipts. Growth in real output has averaged around 5% in the past seven years, but rapid population growth has offset much of this increase. Inflation has subsided over the past several years. Benin uses the CFA franc<\/a>, which is pegged to the euro.<\/p>\n Benin’s economy has continued to strengthen over the past years, with real GDP growth estimated at 5.1 and 5.7% in 2008 and 2009, respectively. The main driver of growth is the agricultural sector, with cotton being the country’s main export, while services continue to contribute the largest part of GDP largely because of Benin’s geographical location, enabling trade, transportation, transit and tourism activities with its neighboring states.<\/p>\n In order to raise growth still further, Benin plans to attract more foreign investment, place more emphasis on tourism, facilitate the development of new food processing systems and agricultural products, and encourage new information and communication technology. Projects to improve the business climate by reforms to the land tenure system, the commercial justice system, and the financial sector were included in Benin’s US$307 million Millennium Challenge Account<\/a> grant signed in February 2006.<\/p>\n An insufficient electrical supply continues to adversely affect Benin’s economic growth though the government recently has taken steps to increase domestic power production.<\/p>\n Transport in Benin includes road, rail, water and air transportation.<\/p>\n Benin possesses a total of 6,787 km of highway, of which 1,357 km are paved. Of the paved highways in the country, there are 10 expressways. This leaves 5,430 km of unpaved road. The Trans-West African Coastal Highway<\/a> crosses Benin, connecting it to Nigeria to the east, and Togo, Ghana and Ivory Coast<\/a> to the west. When construction in Liberia and Sierra Leone<\/a> is finished, the highway will continue west to seven other Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) nations. A paved highway also connects Benin northwards to Niger, and through that country to Burkina Faso and Mali<\/a> to the north-west.<\/p>\n Rail transport in Benin<\/a> consists of 359 miles of single track. Benin does not, at this time, share railway links with adjacent countries, but construction work has commenced on international lines connecting Benin with Niger and Nigeria, with outline plans announced for further connections to Togo and Burkina Faso. Benin will be a participant in the AfricaRail project<\/a>.<\/p>\n Cadjehoun Airport<\/a>, located at Cotonou, has direct international jet service to Accra<\/a>, Niamey<\/a>, Monrovia<\/a>, Lagos<\/a>, Ouagadougou<\/a>, Lom\u00e9<\/a>, and Douala<\/a>, as well as other cities in Africa. Direct services also link Cotonou to Paris<\/a>, Brussels<\/a>, and Istanbul<\/a>.<\/p>\n Cotonou has the country’s only seaport and international airport. A new port is currently under construction between Cotonou and Porto Novo.<\/p>\n The national flag of Benin is a flag consisting of two horizontal yellow and red bands on the fly side and a green vertical band at the hoist. Adopted in 1959 to replace the French Tricolour<\/a>, it was the flag of the Republic of Dahomey<\/a> until 1975, when the People’s Republic of Benin<\/a> was established. The new regime renamed the country and changed the flag to a green field with a red star in the canton. This version was utilized until the regime collapsed in 1990, coinciding with the Revolutions of 1989<\/a>. The new government promptly restored the original pre-1975 flag.<\/p>\n Under French colonial rule<\/a> over Dahomey, French authorities forbade the colony from having its own regional flag. This was because they were worried that this could increase nationalistic sentiment and lead to calls for independence. However, with the rise of the decolonization movement<\/a> in Africa, the French were obliged to grant limited autonomy to Dahomey as a self-governing republic within the French Community<\/a>. This was granted on December 4, 1958, and a search for a national flag began soon after.<\/p>\n The new flag was chosen on November 16, 1959, and remained unchanged when Dahomey became independent less than a year later on August 1, 1960. In 1972, a coup d’\u00e9tat took place in the country, with the new government aligning itself with Marxist\u2013Leninist ideals. In order to symbolize the revolutionary change, the regime renamed the country to Benin and instituted a new flag three years later. This featured a green field charged with a five-pointed red star in the top-left canton. However, the regime’s flag was never adopted by law, making it only the de facto flag of Benin.<\/p>\n The green flag remained in place until 1990, when economic problems and the weakening of the Soviet Union’s power due to the Revolutions of 1989 culminated in the collapse of the People’s Republic of Benin. The socialist regime was replaced and the original flag from 1959 was reinstated on August 1, 1990.<\/p>\n The colors of the flag carry cultural, political, and regional meanings. As stated in the national anthem, the green of the flag represent the hope of a new democracy. The red represents the courage of the ancestors, and the yellow is for the treasures of the nation. On a continental level, the yellow, green and red represented the Pan-Africanist movement<\/a>; the three colors were utilized by the African Democratic Rally<\/a>, a political party representing the interests of French West Africa<\/a> in the National Assembly of France<\/a> at the time of decolonization. Furthermore, the colors are the same as the ones utilized in the flag of Ethiopia<\/a>. This honors the oldest independent country in Africa and the only nation other than Liberia<\/a> to remain independent during the Scramble for Africa.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The national flag of Benin is a flag consisting of two horizontal yellow and red bands on the fly side and a green vertical band at the hoist. Adopted in 1959 to replace the French Tricolour, it was the flag of the Republic of Dahomey until 1975, when the People’s Republic of Benin was established. The new regime renamed the country and changed the flag to a green field with a red star in the canton. This version was utilized until the regime collapsed in 1990, coinciding with the Revolutions of 1989. The new government promptly restored the original pre-1975 flag.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3511,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[19,66,8,5,74,6,7],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3278"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Etymology:<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/09\/Map-of-Benin-153x300.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>History:<\/h2>\n
Precolonial History:<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/09\/Dahomey-Amazons-300x262.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Portuguese Empire:<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/09\/Kingdom-of-Dahomey-1793-300x146.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Colonial Period (1900 until 1958):<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/09\/French-Officer-with-Native-Dahomeans-300x226.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Post-Colonial Period:<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/09\/Lt.-Col.-Mathieu-K\u00e9r\u00e9kou.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/09\/Yayi-Boni-2006-300x240.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Geography:<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/09\/Topographic-Map-of-Benin-156x300.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/09\/Pendjari-National-Park-300x200.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Economy:<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/09\/Cotton-Field-300x225.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/09\/Subsistence-Agriculture-300x225.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Transportation:<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/09\/Benin-Road-Map-296x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/09\/Cadjehoun-Airport-300x192.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Flag of Benin:<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/09\/Flag-of-Benin-300x200.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2019\/09\/Flag-of-the-Peoples-Republic-of-Benin-300x200.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>