Countries
Key facts
- Capital
- Porto-Novo
- Region
- Africa, Western Africa
- Population
- 14,814,460 (2025)
- Area
- 112,620 km²
- Currency
- West African CFA franc (XOF)
- Languages
- French
- Calling code
- +229
- Internet domain
- .bj
- ISO codes
- BJ, BEN, 204
- Time zone
- UTC+1:00
- United Nations
- Member state
Land and position
Benin covers about 112,620 square kilometres. By area it ranks 103rd among the 250 countries and territories on this site. It is a little smaller than Malawi and a little larger than Honduras. It shares a land border with 4 neighbours: Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Togo. Its centre lies at about 10° north, 2° east, in the northern hemisphere.
Neighbours
People
About 14.8 million people live in Benin (World Bank, 2025). That makes it the 76th most populous of the 246 places on this site with a figure, with about 0.18 percent of the world's people. On average there are 132 people to each square kilometre. About 53 percent of people live in towns and cities (World Bank, 2025). A baby born there can expect to live about 61 years (World Bank, 2024). Languages listed for it: French. A person from Benin is called Beninese.
Money and economy
The currency is the West African CFA franc (code XOF, symbol Fr). It is also the main currency of Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Togo. The World Bank puts the size of its economy (GDP) at about US$ 24.6 billion (2025), which is about US$ 1,658 for each person (2025).
Time
Benin uses one time zone, UTC+1:00 (Africa/Porto-Novo). Clocks stay the same all year: there is no daylight saving time.
Time now: loading
Offsets are for January 2026. See Time Zones for a converter.
Largest cities
| City | People |
|---|---|
| Cotonou | 679,012 |
| Abomey-Calavi | 385,755 |
| Porto-Novo | 264,320 |
| Parakou | 255,478 |
| Godomè | 253,262 |
| Abomey | 117,824 |
City figures are from GeoNames and count the city itself, not the wider urban area. They can be some years old, so use them to see the order of size.
More in Western Africa
Cape Verde, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali. See the whole region.
Figures were collected on 11 November 2026 from the World Bank, GeoNames and the open countries data set. See About and data sources. Borders and names follow those sources and do not express any view on disputed territory.