Benin

Benin was the seat of the Kingdom of Dahomey, a highly militarised state centred on Abomey that rose around 1600. It is remembered for the painted bas-reliefs of its royal palaces, for the female regiment Europeans called the "Amazons," and for its central, brutal role in the Atlantic slave trade: Dahomey raided its neighbours for captives and sold them to European traders at the coast, above all through Ouidah, one of the largest slaving ports in Africa.

France conquered Dahomey in 1894. Independence in 1960 was followed by a decade of coups, then a Marxist-Leninist one-party state under Mathieu Kérékou, who renamed the country Benin in 1975. In 1990 a pioneering national conference peacefully ended the dictatorship and introduced multiparty democracy, a transition widely admired across Africa.

Benin held competitive elections for about three decades. Since 2016, under President Patrice Talon, changes to party and candidacy rules have squeezed the opposition, and international observers judge recent elections less free, so the country's democratic standing has slipped. Jihadist violence spilling south from the Sahel now affects the far north.

Benin is the birthplace of Vodun — "voodoo" in its diaspora forms — a formally recognised religion here, practised alongside and blended with Christianity and Islam. National Vodun Day on 10 January is a public holiday, with major ceremonies at Ouidah involving drumming, offerings, and the Egungun and Zangbeto masked spirits.

The population is a patchwork: Fon around Abomey and Cotonou, Yoruba in the southeast, Bariba and Dendi in the north, Fulani herders, and the Betammaribe of the Atakora, known for their fortress-like mud tower-houses. Descendants of Afro-Brazilian former captives who returned in the nineteenth century, the "Agudás," give Ouidah and Porto-Novo a Brazilian flavour in their architecture and food.

Music, dance, and masquerade run through community life, and hospitality to guests is a strong obligation. The appliqué textiles of Abomey, once made for the royal court, are still produced by hand.

Benin is among the poorer countries in the world, and its economy leans heavily on cotton — the top export — the port of Cotonou, subsistence farming, and lively cross-border trade with Nigeria, whose currency and fuel policy ripple through daily life; bootleg petrol sold in glass bottles at the roadside is a common sight.

Cotonou is defined by the zémidjan, tens of thousands of yellow-shirted motorcycle taxis weaving through traffic, and by Dantokpa, one of West Africa's largest markets. Porto-Novo, the official capital, is quieter and more colonial in feel. Most of the country is rural, farming maize, cassava, yams, and beans.

The year follows the farming calendar, the rains, the Islamic and Christian holidays in their respective regions, and the Vodun ceremonies that punctuate life in the south.

The staples are maize, cassava, yam, and beans. A stiff dough — akassa or amiwo from maize, or pounded yam — is eaten with a sauce of tomato, peanut, okra, or the pungent fermented néré seed, often with fish. Bean fritters (akara), grilled fish and chicken, and fried Fulani cheese (wagasi) are common.

Benin grows some of the sweetest pineapples in West Africa, a major crop, and is known for palm wine and sodabi, a strong spirit distilled from it. Among the Agudás of Ouidah and Porto-Novo, Brazilian-derived dishes and stews have stayed on the menu for generations.

Meals are shared from communal bowls, eaten by hand, and offered generously to any visitor.

Ganvié, a town of tens of thousands living in stilt houses on Lake Nokoué near Cotonou, is the country's signature sight. It was founded by Tofinu people fleeing Dahomey's slave raiders, whose beliefs forbade attacking people living on water, and is reached by pirogue through the reeds and floating markets.

Ouidah is the place to understand the slave trade: the Python Temple facing the Catholic basilica, the Sacred Forest of Kpasse with its Vodun sculptures, and the four-kilometre Slave Route ending at the Door of No Return, an arch on the beach where captives were loaded. Abomey holds the Royal Palaces of Dahomey, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with a museum of thrones, weapons, and appliqué banners.

Porto-Novo has the candy-coloured Great Mosque, a former Afro-Brazilian church, and King Toffa's palace. In the northwest, the Somba country around Natitingou has the tata tower-houses of the Koutammakou landscape. The Pendjari and W parks hold the best savanna wildlife in West Africa but are currently unsafe and largely closed.