🇧🇯

Flag of Benin

Africa

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Quick Facts

Capital
Porto-Novo
Flag adopted
1960
Population
13,224,860
Area
112,622 km²
Languages
French
Currency
West African CFA franc (Fr) — XOF
Demonym
Beninese
Government
presidential republic
Subregion
Western Africa
Driving side
Right
Timezones
UTC+01:00
Independence
1960

Religions

  • Muslim 27.7%
  • Roman Catholic 25.5%
  • Protestant 23%
  • Vodou 11.6%
  • None 5.8%
  • other traditional religions 2.6%
  • Other 2.6%

About This Flag

A vertical green band on the hoist side occupying roughly one-third of the flag, with two horizontal bands of yellow on the top and red on the bottom making up the remaining two-thirds. The green, yellow, and red are pan-African colors representing the unity and heritage of the African continent.

Green symbolizes hope and revival, yellow represents the wealth and resources of the land, and red stands for the courage and blood of ancestors. Originally adopted at independence on August 1, 1960, as the Republic of Dahomey, the flag was briefly replaced by a solid green flag with a red star during the Marxist period (1975-1990).

The original tricolor was restored on August 1, 1990, when the country transitioned to democracy.

What the colors & design mean

Green symbolizes hope for renewal and the palm groves of southern Benin. Yellow represents the northern savanna regions and the country's natural wealth. Red honors the courage of ancestors who fought for the nation. Together, the pan-African colors celebrate Benin's African identity and heritage.

green yellow red

Pattern: Vertical Stripes

Bordering countries (4)

🇧🇫 Burkina Faso 🇳🇪 Niger 🇳🇬 Nigeria 🇹🇬 Togo

Fun Facts

  • Benin is one of only a handful of countries to abandon its flag and later restore the exact original design, reverting in 1990 after 15 years under a Marxist-era green flag with a red star.
  • The country was renamed from Dahomey to Benin in 1975, taking its name from the historical Bight of Benin, which was actually named after the unrelated Kingdom of Benin in present-day Nigeria.
  • Benin's former kingdom of Dahomey was famous for its elite all-female military regiment, the Mino, often called the Dahomey Amazons by Europeans.
  • The flag's vertical-horizontal layout is relatively unusual among African nations, most of which use purely horizontal or vertical stripe arrangements.

Similar looking flags

These flags share similar colors and patterns:

🇧🇯 Cameroon 🇧🇯 Guinea 🇧🇯 Mali 🇧🇯 Senegal 🇧🇯 Portugal

More Africa Flags

🇩🇿 Algeria · 🇦🇴 Angola · 🇧🇼 Botswana · 🇧🇫 Burkina Faso · 🇧🇮 Burundi · 🇨🇲 Cameroon · 🇨🇻 Cape Verde · 🇨🇫 Central African Republic

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