Republican of Benin

The capital:            Porto - Novo

The inhabitants enumerated:            6,787,625 (July 2002)

The language:            The Frenchman (official), and African

The sweat:            There about 42 tribe: [fwn], [daahwmyns], [baarybaa], [swmbaa], [ywrwbaa]

The climate:            Tropical - hot with humidity in the south, partial dry and infertile

Regime of the governing:            The republican

The economy

- the currency:            [sy] ['if] ['iyh] Frank

- the resources:            Petroleum, crude iron, phosphate, as Romen, and solving (mixture from the clay and the water), marble, limestone

The religion:            Traditional tenets and bronchial (65%), the Islam (15%), Christian (20%)

History

Benin is a unitary single-party peoples republic with one legislative house (National Revolutionary Assembly) with 196 seats. Since the 17th century the country was known as the Kingdom of Dahomey. Formerly a part of French West Africa, it became independent as the Republic of Dahomey on 1 August 1960. The present name was given on 1 December 1975 when the military government adopted a Marxist-Leninist constitution and Benin became a people's republic. From 1974 to 1989 the country was a socialist state; free elections were reestablished in 1991.