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Ile-Ife was a powerful Yoruba kingdom dated to the 4th century BC. Yorubaland is the cultural region of the Yoruba people in West Africa. It spans the modern-day countries of Nigeria, Togo, and Benin. From the 12th to the 15th centuries, Ife flourished as a powerful, cosmopolitan and wealthy city-state in West Africa. The cities were fortresses, with high walls and gates. Ife was an influential centre of trade connected to extensive local and long-distance trade networks…

Great Ardra was a coastal West African kingdom in what is now southern Benin. It was named for its capital, the modern Allada, which was also the main city and major port of the realm. The city and kingdom were supposedly founded by a group of Aja migrants in the 12th or 13th century. Its kings "ruled with the consent of the elders of the people". The state reached the peak of its power in the 16th and early 17th centuries, when it was an important source of slaves for the…

The Oyo Empire was a Yoruba empire established in the 15th century in what is today Benin and North central Nigeria. It rose through the outstanding organizational and administrative skills of the Yoruba people, wealth gained from trade and its powerful cavalry. Its foundation myth draws upon Yoruba religious beliefs and holds sacred the original settlement of Ile-Ife, which continues to be upheld as the creation site for the Yoruba people with significance to local…

Abomey is a city in the Zou Department of Benin. Abomey is also the former capital of the Kingdom of Dahomey (c. 1600–1904), which would later become a French colony, then the Republic of Dahomey (1960–1975), and is the modern-day Republic of Benin. Abomey houses the Royal Palaces of Abomey, a collection of small traditional houses that were inhabited by the Kings of Dahomey from 1600 to 1900, and which were designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1985. The commune of…

The Kingdom of Dahomey was an important regional power that had an organized domestic economy built on conquest and slave labor, significant international trade with Europeans, a centralized administration, taxation systems, and an organized military. Notable in the kingdom were significant artwork, an all-female military unit known as the Dahomey Amazons, and the elaborate religious practices of Vodun with the large festival of the Annual Customs of Dahomey. Common art…