Pre-colonial , 1793 Prior to 1600, present-day Benin comprised a variety of areas with different political systems and ethnicities. These included
city-states along the coast (primarily of the
Aja ethnic group and also including
Yoruba and
Gbe peoples) and tribal regions inland (composed of
Bariba, Mahi,
Gedevi, and Kabye peoples). The
Oyo Empire, located primarily to the east of Benin, was a military force in the region, conducting raids and exacting tribute from the coastal kingdoms and tribal regions. The situation changed in the 17th and 18th centuries as the
Kingdom of Dahomey, consisting mostly of
Fon people, was founded on the
Abomey plateau and began taking over areas along the coast. By 1727, King
Agaja of the Kingdom of Dahomey had conquered the coastal cities of
Allada and
Whydah. Dahomey had become a tributary of the Oyo Empire, and rivaled but did not directly attack the Oyo-allied city-state of
Porto-Novo. The rise of Dahomey, its rivalry with Porto-Novo, and tribal politics in the northern region persisted into the colonial and post-colonial periods. In the
Dahomey, some younger people were apprenticed to older soldiers and taught the kingdom's military customs until they were old enough to join the army. Dahomey instituted an elite female soldier corps variously called
Ahosi (the king's wives), Mino ("our mothers" in
Fongbe) or the "Dahomean
Amazons". This emphasis on military preparation and achievement earned Dahomey the nickname of "Black
Sparta", from European observers and 19th-century explorers such as
Sir Richard Burton. was the longest European presence in Benin, beginning in 1680 and ending in 1961 when the last forces left
Ajudá. The kings of Dahomey sold their war captives into
transatlantic slavery or killed them ritually in a ceremony known as the
Annual Customs. By about 1750, the King of Dahomey was earning an estimated £250,000 per year by selling African captives to European slave-traders. The area was named the
"Slave Coast" because of a flourishing slave trade. Court protocols which demanded that a portion of war captives from the kingdom's 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. The decline was partly due to the
Slave Trade Act 1807 banning the
trans-Atlantic slave trade by Britain in 1808, followed by other countries. Another major good sought by European settlers was palm oil. In 1856, approximately 2,500 tons of palm oil was exported by British companies which was valued at £112,500.
Colonial By the middle of the 19th century, Dahomey had "begun to weaken and lose its status as the
regional power". The French took over the area in 1892. In 1899, the French included the land called
French Dahomey within the larger
French West Africa colonial region. France sought to benefit from
Dahomey and the region "appeared to lack the necessary agricultural or
mineral resources for large-scale
capitalist development". As a result, France treated Dahomey as a sort of preserve in case future discoveries revealed resources worth developing. The president who led the country to independence was
Hubert Maga.
Post-colonial After 1960, there were coups and regime changes, with the figures of
Hubert Maga,
Sourou Migan Apithy,
Justin Ahomadégbé, and
Émile Derlin Zinsou dominating; the first three each represented a different area and ethnicity of the country. These three agreed to form a
Presidential Council after violence marred the 1970 elections. On 7 May 1972, Maga ceded power to Ahomadégbé. On 26 October 1972, Lt. Col.
Mathieu Kérékou 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, he announced that the country was officially
Marxist, 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 the
People's Republic of Benin. The regime of the People's Republic of Benin underwent changes over the course of its existence: a
nationalist period (1972–1974); a
socialist phase (1974–1982); and a phase involving an opening to Western countries and
economic liberalism (1982–1990). In 1974, the government embarked on a program to nationalize strategic sectors of the economy, reform the education system, establish agricultural cooperatives and new local government structures, and a campaign to eradicate "
feudal forces" including
tribalism. The regime banned opposition activities. Mathieu Kérékou was elected president by the National Revolutionary Assembly in 1980, re-elected in 1984. Establishing relations with
China,
North Korea, and
Libya, he put "nearly all" businesses and economic activities under state control, causing foreign investment in Benin to dry up. Kérékou attempted to reorganize education, pushing his own aphorisms such as "Poverty is not a fatality". 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. Kérékou lost to
Nicéphore Soglo in a 1991 election and became the first president on the African mainland to lose power through an election. Kérékou returned to power after winning the 1996 vote. In 2001, an election resulted in Kérékou winning another term, after which his opponents claimed election irregularities. In 1999, Kérékou issued a national apology for the substantial role that Africans had played in the Atlantic slave trade.
21st century 's 2006 presidential inauguration Kérékou 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. The
Beninese presidential election, 2006 resulted in a
runoff between
Thomas Boni Yayi and
Adrien Houngbédji. The runoff election was held on 19 March and was won by Boni, who assumed office on 6 April. Boni was
reelected in 2011, taking 53.18% of the vote in the first round—enough to avoid a runoff election. He was the first president to win an election without a runoff since the restoration of democracy in 1991. In the
March 2016 presidential elections in which Boni Yayi was barred by the constitution from running for a third term, businessman
Patrice Talon won the second round with 65.37% of the vote, defeating investment banker and former Prime Minister
Lionel Zinsou. 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 5 years to combat "complacency". He said that he planned to slash the size of the government from 28 to 16 members. In April 2021, President Patrice Talon was re-elected, with more than 86.3% of the votes cast in the
2021 Beninese presidential election. The change in election laws resulted in total control of parliament by president Talon's supporters. In February 2022, Benin saw its largest terrorist attack in history, the
W National Park massacre. On 20 February 2022, President Talon inaugurated an exhibition with 26 pieces of sacred art returned to Benin by France, 129 years after they were looted by colonial forces. In March 2025, the government of Benin adopted a law, recognizing 16 kingdoms, 80 senior chiefs and 10 traditional chiefs through a new law. The pre-colonial period starting in 1894 for the south and 1897 for the north served as a historical reference for the bill, identifying traditional territories and rules to institutionalize chieftaincy. In July 2025, the My Afro Origins law went into effect, granting the right of provisional Beninese citizenship to members of the
African diaspora whose ancestry was impacted by the transatlantic slave trade. On 7 December 2025, a
coup attempt occurred in which a faction of the army led by Pascal Tigri claimed to have overthrown
President Talon and suspended the government and all political parties. However, the government later announced it had suppressed the coup and regained full control of all institutions, although Talon's whereabouts were unknown. == Geography ==