Benin Benin Benin ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Benin () and formerly Dahomey, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east, and Burkina Faso and Niger to the north. The majority of its population lives on the small southern coastline of the Bight of Benin, part of the Gulf of Guinea in the northernmost tropical portion of the Atlantic Ocean. The capital of Benin is Porto-Novo, but the seat of government is in Cotonou, the country's largest city and economic capital. Benin covers an area of and its
Pan African Writers' Association full diplomatic status by the government of Ghana. In 1991, the Conference of African Ministers of Education and Culture, meeting in Cotonou, Benin, resolved to establish 7 November, the day on which PAWA was founded, as International African Writers' Day, which is now celebrated throughout the continent. In November 2015, more than 300 writers and scholars gathered to commemorate the 22nd International African Writers’ Day at a three-day conference, held in Accra, that took as its theme "Celebrating the life and works of Chinua Achebe: The Coming of Age of African Literature?", with a keynote address by Henri Lopès and