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Compare Benin (2006) - World (2002)
Compare Benin (2006) z World (2002)
| Benin (2006) | World (2002) | |
 |  | |
| Administrative divisions | 12 departments; Alibori, Atakora, Atlantique, Borgou, Collines, Kouffo, Donga, Littoral, Mono, Oueme, Plateau, Zou | 268 nations, dependent areas, other, and miscellaneous entries |
| Age structure | 0-14 years: 44.1% (male 1,751,709/female 1,719,138)
15-64 years: 53.5% (male 2,067,248/female 2,138,957) 65 years and over: 2.4% (male 75,694/female 110,198) (2006 est.) |
0-14 years: 29.2% (male 932,581,592; female 885,688,851)
15-64 years: 63.7% (male 2,009,997,089; female 1,964,938,201) 65 years and over: 7.1% (male 193,549,180; female 247,067,032) (2002 est.) |
| Agriculture - products | cotton, corn, cassava (tapioca), yams, beans, palm oil, peanuts; livestock | - |
| Airports | 5 (2006) | - |
| Airports - with paved runways | total: 1
1,524 to 2,437 m: 1 (2006) |
- |
| Airports - with unpaved runways | total: 4
2,438 to 3,047 m: 1 1,524 to 2,437 m: 1 914 to 1,523 m: 2 (2006) |
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| Area | total: 112,620 sq km
land: 110,620 sq km water: 2,000 sq km |
total: 510.072 million sq km
land: 148.94 million sq km water: 361.132 million sq km note: 70.8% of the world's surface is water, 29.2% is land |
| Area - comparative | slightly smaller than Pennsylvania | land area about 16 times the size of the US |
| Background | Present day Benin was the site of Dahomey, a prominent West African kingdom that rose in the 15th century. The territory became a French Colony in 1872 and achieved independence on 1 August 1960, as the Republic of Benin. A succession of military governments ended in 1972 with the rise to power of Mathieu KEREKOU and the establishment of a government based on Marxist-Leninist principles. A move to representative government began in 1989. Two years later, free elections ushered in former Prime Minister Nicephore SOGLO as president, marking the first successful transfer of power in Africa from a dictatorship to a democracy. KEREKOU was returned to power by elections held in 1996 and 2001, though some irregularities were alleged. | Globally, the 20th century was marked by: (a) two devastating world wars; (b) the Great Depression of the 1930s; (c) the end of vast colonial empires; (d) rapid advances in science and technology, from the first airplane flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina (US) to the landing on the moon; (e) the Cold War between the Western alliance and the Warsaw Pact nations; (f) a sharp rise in living standards in North America, Europe, and Japan; (g) increased concerns about the environment, including loss of forests, shortages of energy and water, the decline in biological diversity, and air pollution; (h) the onset of the AIDS epidemic; and (i) the ultimate emergence of the US as the only world superpower. The planet's population continues to explode: from 1 billion in 1820, to 2 billion in 1930, 3 billion in 1960, 4 billion in 1974, 5 billion in 1988, and 6 billion in 2000. For the 21st century, the continued exponential growth in science and technology raises both hopes (e.g., advances in medicine) and fears (e.g., development of even more lethal weapons of war). |
| Birth rate | 38.85 births/1,000 population (2006 est.) | 21.16 births/1,000 population (2002 est.) |
| Budget | revenues: $766.8 million
expenditures: $1.017 billion; including capital expenditures of $NA (2005 est.) |
- |
| Capital | name: Porto-Novo (official capital)
geographic coordinates: 6 29 N, 2 37 E time difference: UTC+1 (6 hours ahead of Washington, DC during Standard Time) note: Cotonou (seat of government) |
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| Climate | tropical; hot, humid in south; semiarid in north | two large areas of polar climates separated by two rather narrow temperate zones form a wide equatorial band of tropical to subtropical climates |
| Coastline | 121 km | 356,000 km |
| Constitution | December 1990 | - |
| Country name | conventional long form: Republic of Benin
conventional short form: Benin local long form: Republique du Benin local short form: Benin former: Dahomey |
- |
| Death rate | 12.22 deaths/1,000 population (2006 est.) | 8.93 deaths/1,000 population (2002 est.) |
| Debt - external | $1.6 billion (2000) | $2 trillion for less developed countries (2001 est.) |
| Diplomatic representation from the US | chief of mission: Ambassador Wayne NEILL
embassy: Rue Caporal Bernard Anani, Cotonou mailing address: 01 B. P. 2012, Cotonou telephone: [229] 30-06-50 FAX: [229] 30-06-70 |
- |
| Diplomatic representation in the US | chief of mission: Ambassador Cyrille Segbe OGUIN
chancery: 2124 Kalorama Road NW, Washington, DC 20008 telephone: [1] (202) 232-6656 FAX: [1] (202) 265-1996 |
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| Disputes - international | Benin and Burkina Faso military clash in 2006 over sections of riverine boundary involving disputed villages and squatters; much of Benin-Niger boundary, including tripoint with Nigeria, remains undemarcated; in 2005, Nigeria ceded thirteen villages to Benin as a consequence of a 2004 joint task force to resolve maritime and land boundary disputes, but clashes among rival gangs along the border persist; a joint boundary commission continues to resurvey the boundary with Togo to verify Benin's claim that Togo moved boundary stones | - |
| Economic aid - recipient | $342.6 million (2000) | official development assistance (ODA) $50 billion (2001 est.) |
| Economy - overview | The economy of Benin remains underdeveloped and dependent on subsistence agriculture, cotton production, and regional trade. Growth in real output has averaged around 5% in the past six years, but rapid population growth has offset much of this increase. Inflation has subsided over the past several years. In order to raise growth still further, Benin plans to attract more foreign investment, place more emphasis on tourism, facilitate the development of new food processing systems and agricultural products, and encourage new information and communication technology. Many of these proposals are included in Benin's application to receive Millennium Challenge Account funding - for which it was a finalist in 2004-05. The 2001 privatization policy continues in telecommunications, water, electricity, and agriculture in spite of government reluctance. The Paris Club and bilateral creditors have eased the external debt situation, with Benin benefiting from a G8 debt reduction announced in July 2005, while pressing for more rapid structural reforms. Benin continues to be hurt by Nigerian trade protection that bans imports of a growing list of products from Benin and elsewhere, which has resulted in increased smuggling and criminality in the border region. | Growth in global output (gross world product, GWP) fell from 4.8% in 2000 to 2.2% in 2001. The causes: slowdowns in the US economy (21% of GWP) and in the 15 EU economies (20% of GWP); continued stagnation in the Japanese economy (7.3% of GWP); and spillover effects in the less developed regions of the world. China, the second largest economy in the world (12% of GWP), proved an exception, continuing its rapid annual growth, officially announced as 7.3% but estimated by many observers as perhaps two percentage points lower. Russia (2.6% of GWP), with 5.2% growth, continued to make uneven progress, its GDP per capita still only one-third that of the leading industrial nations. The other 14 successor nations of the USSR and the other old Warsaw Pact nations again experienced widely divergent growth rates; the three Baltic nations were strong performers, in the 5% range of growth. The developing nations also varied in their growth results, with many countries facing population increases that eat up gains in output. Externally, the nation-state, as a bedrock economic-political institution, is steadily losing control over international flows of people, goods, funds, and technology. Internally, the central government often finds its control over resources slipping as separatist regional movements - typically based on ethnicity - gain momentum, e.g., in many of the successor states of the former Soviet Union, in the former Yugoslavia, in India, in Indonesia, and in Canada. In Western Europe, governments face the difficult political problem of channeling resources away from welfare programs in order to increase investment and strengthen incentives to seek employment. The addition of 80 million people each year to an already overcrowded globe is exacerbating the problems of pollution, desertification, underemployment, epidemics, and famine. Because of their own internal problems and priorities, the industrialized countries devote insufficient resources to deal effectively with the poorer areas of the world, which, at least from the economic point of view, are becoming further marginalized. The introduction of the euro as the common currency of much of Western Europe in January 1999, while paving the way for an integrated economic powerhouse, poses economic risks because of varying levels of income and cultural and political differences among the participating nations. The terrorist attacks on the US on 11 September 2001 accentuate a further growing risk to global prosperity, illustrated, for example, by the reallocation of resources away from investment to anti-terrorist programs. (For specific economic developments in each country of the world in 2001, see the individual country entries.) |
| Electricity - consumption | 538.2 million kWh (2003) | - |
| Electricity - exports | 0 kWh (2003) | - |
| Electricity - imports | 474 million kWh (2003) | - |
| Electricity - production | 69 million kWh (2003) | - |
| Electricity - production by source | - | fossil fuel: NA%
hydro: NA% nuclear: NA% other: NA% |
| Elevation extremes | lowest point: Atlantic Ocean 0 m
highest point: Mont Sokbaro 658 m |
lowest point: Bentley Subglacial Trench -2,540 m
note: in the oceanic realm, Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench is the lowest point, lying -10,924 m below the surface of the Pacific Ocean highest point: Mount Everest 8,850 m (1999 est.) |
| Environment - current issues | inadequate supplies of potable water; poaching threatens wildlife populations; deforestation; desertification | large areas subject to overpopulation, industrial disasters, pollution (air, water, acid rain, toxic substances), loss of vegetation (overgrazing, deforestation, desertification), loss of wildlife, soil degradation, soil depletion, erosion |
| Environment - international agreements | party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Wetlands
signed, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements |
- |
| Ethnic groups | African 99% (42 ethnic groups, most important being Fon, Adja, Yoruba, Bariba), Europeans 5,500 | - |
| Exchange rates | Communaute Financiere Africaine francs (XOF) per US dollar - 527.47 (2005), 528.29 (2004), 581.2 (2003), 696.99 (2002), 733.04 (2001) | - |
| Executive branch | chief of state: President YAYI Boni (since 6 April 2006); note - the president is both the chief of state and head of government
head of government: President YAYI Boni (since 6 April 2006) cabinet: Council of Ministers appointed by the president elections: president reelected by popular vote for a five-year term (eligible for a second term); runoff election held 19 March 2006 (next to be held March 2011) election results: YAYI Boni elected president; percent of vote - YAYI Boni 74.5%, Adrien HOUNGBEDJI 25.5% |
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| Exports | NA bbl/day | $6.3 trillion f.o.b. (2001 est.) |
| Exports - commodities | cotton, crude oil, palm products, cocoa | the whole range of industrial and agricultural goods and services |
| Exports - partners | China 31.3%, Indonesia 8.1%, India 7.4%, Niger 6%, Togo 4.8%, Thailand 4.8%, Nigeria 4.6% (2005) | in value, about 75% of exports from the developed countries |
| Fiscal year | calendar year | - |
| Flag description | two equal horizontal bands of yellow (top) and red (bottom) with a vertical green band on the hoist side | - |
| GDP | - | GWP (gross world product) - purchasing power parity - $47 trillion (2001 est.) |
| GDP - composition by sector | agriculture: 31.6%
industry: 13.8% services: 54.6% (2004 est.) |
agriculture: 4%
industry: 32% services: 64% (2001 est.) |
| GDP - per capita | - | purchasing power parity - $7,600 (2001 est.) |
| GDP - real growth rate | 3.5% (2005 est.) | 2.2% (2001 est.) |
| Geographic coordinates | 9 30 N, 2 15 E | - |
| Geography - note | sandbanks create difficult access to a coast with no natural harbors, river mouths, or islands | the world is now thought to be about 4.55 billion years old, just about one-third of the 13-billion-year age estimated for the universe |
| Highways | - | total: NA km
paved: NA km unpaved: NA km |
| Household income or consumption by percentage share | lowest 10%: NA%
highest 10%: NA% |
lowest 10%: NA%
highest 10%: NA% |
| Illicit drugs | transshipment point for narcotics associated with Nigerian trafficking organizations and most commonly destined for Western Europe and the US; vulnerable to money laundering due to a poorly regulated financial infrastructure | - |
| Imports | NA bbl/day | $6.3 trillion f.o.b. (2001 est.) |
| Imports - commodities | foodstuffs, capital goods, petroleum products | the whole range of industrial and agricultural goods and services |
| Imports - partners | France 21.8%, Ghana 7.1%, Cote d'Ivoire 7%, China 6.7%, UK 5.2%, Belgium 4.9%, Togo 4.5%, Thailand 4.2%, Nigeria 4% (2005) | in value, about 75% of imports into the developed countries |
| Independence | 1 August 1960 (from France) | - |
| Industrial production growth rate | 8.3% (2001 est.) | 6% (2000 est.) |
| Industries | textiles, food processing, construction materials, cement | dominated by the onrush of technology, especially in computers, robotics, telecommunications, and medicines and medical equipment; most of these advances take place in OECD nations; only a small portion of non-OECD countries have succeeded in rapidly adjusting to these technological forces; the accelerated development of new industrial (and agricultural) technology is complicating already grim environmental problems |
| Infant mortality rate | total: 79.56 deaths/1,000 live births
male: 84.09 deaths/1,000 live births female: 74.88 deaths/1,000 live births (2006 est.) |
51.55 deaths/1,000 live births (2002 est.) |
| Inflation rate (consumer prices) | 3.5% (2005 est.) | developed countries 1% to 4% typically; developing countries 5% to 60% typically (2001 est.); national inflation rates vary widely in individual cases, from declining prices in Japan to hyperinflation in several Third World countries |
| International organization participation | ACCT, ACP, AfDB, AU, ECOWAS, Entente, FAO, FZ, G-77, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICCt, ICFTU, ICRM, IDA, IDB, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, ILO, IMF, IMO, Interpol, IOC, IOM, IPU, ISO (correspondent), ITU, MIGA, MONUC, NAM, OIC, OIF, ONUB, OPCW, UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNIDO, UNMIL, UNMIS, UNOCI, UPU, WADB (regional), WAEMU, WCL, WCO, WFTU, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WToO, WTO | - |
| Internet Service Providers (ISPs) | - | 10,350 (2000 est.) |
| Irrigated land | 120 sq km (2003) | 2,714,320 sq km (1998 est.) |
| Judicial branch | Constitutional Court or Cour Constitutionnelle; Supreme Court or Cour Supreme; High Court of Justice | - |
| Labor force | 3.211 million | NA |
| Labor force - by occupation | - | agriculture NA%, industry NA%, services NA% |
| Land boundaries | total: 1,989 km
border countries: Burkina Faso 306 km, Niger 266 km, Nigeria 773 km, Togo 644 km |
the land boundaries in the world total 250,472 km (not counting shared boundaries twice) |
| Land use | arable land: 23.53%
permanent crops: 2.37% other: 74.1% (2005) |
arable land: 10.58%
permanent crops: 1% other: 88.42% (1998 est.) |
| Languages | French (official), Fon and Yoruba (most common vernaculars in south), tribal languages (at least six major ones in north) | Chinese, Mandarin 14.37%, Hindi 6.02%, English 5.61%, Spanish 5.59%, Bengali 3.4%, Portuguese 2.63%, Russian 2.75%, Japanese 2.06%, German, Standard 1.64%, Korean 1.28%, French 1.27% (2000 est.)
note: percents are for "first language" speakers only |
| Legal system | based on French civil law and customary law; has not accepted compulsory ICJ jurisdiction | all members of the UN plus Switzerland are parties to the statute that established the International Court of Justice (ICJ) or World Court |
| Legislative branch | unicameral National Assembly or Assemblee Nationale (83 seats; members are elected by direct popular vote to serve four-year terms)
elections: last held 30 March 2003 (next to be held March 2007) election results: percent of vote by party - NA%; seats by party - Presidential Movement (UBF, MADEP, FC, Alliance MDC-PC-CPP, IPD, AFP, MDS, RDP) 52, opposition (PRB, PRD, E'toile, and 5 other small parties) 31 |
- |
| Life expectancy at birth | total population: 53.04 years
male: 51.9 years female: 54.22 years (2006 est.) |
total population: 63.94 years
male: 62.28 years female: 65.67 years (2002 est.) |
| Literacy | definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 33.6% male: 46.4% female: 22.6% (2002 est.) |
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 77% male: 83% female: 71% (1995 est.) |
| Location | Western Africa, bordering the Bight of Benin, between Nigeria and Togo | - |
| Map references | Africa | Physical Map of the World, Political Map of the World, Standard Time Zones of the World |
| Maritime claims | territorial sea: 200 nm | a variety of situations exist, but in general, most countries make the following claims: contiguous zone - 24 NM; continental shelf - 200-m depth or to the depth of exploitation, or 200 NM or to the edge of the continental margin; exclusive fishing zone - 200 NM; exclusive economic zone - 200 NM; territorial sea - 12 NM; boundary situations with neighboring states prevent many countries from extending their fishing or economic zones to a full 200 NM; 43 nations and other areas that are landlocked include Afghanistan, Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bhutan, Bolivia, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Czech Republic, Ethiopia, Holy See (Vatican City), Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lesotho, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malawi, Mali, Moldova, Mongolia, Nepal, Niger, Paraguay, Rwanda, San Marino, Slovakia, Swaziland, Switzerland, Tajikistan, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Uzbekistan, West Bank, Zambia, Zimbabwe; two of these, Liechtenstein and Uzbekistan, are doubly landlocked |
| Military branches | Army, Navy, Air Force | - |
| Military expenditures - dollar figure | $100.9 million (2005 est.) | aggregate real expenditure on arms worldwide in 1999 remained at approximately the 1998 level, about three-quarters of a trillion dollars (1999 est.) |
| Military expenditures - percent of GDP | 2.3% (2005 est.) | roughly 2% of gross world product (1999 est.) |
| National holiday | National Day, 1 August (1960) | - |
| Nationality | noun: Beninese (singular and plural)
adjective: Beninese |
- |
| Natural hazards | hot, dry, dusty harmattan wind may affect north from December to March | large areas subject to severe weather (tropical cyclones), natural disasters (earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions) |
| Natural resources | small offshore oil deposits, limestone, marble, timber | the rapid depletion of nonrenewable mineral resources, the depletion of forest areas and wetlands, the extinction of animal and plant species, and the deterioration in air and water quality (especially in Eastern Europe, the former USSR, and China) pose serious long-term problems that governments and peoples are only beginning to address |
| Net migration rate | 0.67 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2006 est.) | - |
| Political parties and leaders | Alliance of Progress Forces or AFP; African Movement for Democracy and Progress or MADEP [Sefou FAGBOHOUN]; Democratic Renewal Party or PRD [Adrien HOUNGBEDJI]; Impulse for Progress and Democracy or IPD; Key Force or FC; Movement for Development and Solidarity or MDS; Movement for Development by the Culture-Salute Party-Congress of People for Progress Alliance or Alliance MDC-PS-CPP; New Alliance or NA; Rally for Democracy and Progress or RDP; Renaissance Party du Benin or RB [Nicephore SOGLO]; The Star Alliance (Alliance E'toile) [Sacca LAFIA]; Union of Tomorrow's Benin or UBF [Bruno AMOUSSOU]
note: approximately 20 additional minor parties |
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| Political pressure groups and leaders | NA | - |
| Population | 7,862,944
note: estimates for this country explicitly take into account the effects of excess mortality due to AIDS; this can result in lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality and death rates, lower population and growth rates, and changes in the distribution of population by age and sex than would otherwise be expected (July 2006 est.) |
6,233,821,945 (July 2002 est.) |
| Population below poverty line | 33% (2001 est.) | - |
| Population growth rate | 2.73% (2006 est.) | 1.23% (2002 est.) |
| Ports and harbors | - | Chiba, Houston, Kawasaki, Kobe, Marseille, Mina' al Ahmadi (Kuwait), New Orleans, New York, Rotterdam, Yokohama |
| Radio broadcast stations | AM 2, FM 9, shortwave 4 (2000) | AM NA, FM NA, shortwave NA |
| Radios | - | NA |
| Railways | total: 578 km
narrow gauge: 578 km 1.000-m gauge (2005) |
total: 1,201,337 km includes about 190,000 to 195,000 km of electrified routes of which 147,760 km are in Europe, 24,509 km in the Far East, 11,050 km in Africa, 4,223 km in South America, and 4,160 km in North America; note - fastest speed in daily service is 300 km/hr attained by France's Societe Nationale des Chemins-de-Fer Francais (SNCF) Le Train a Grande Vitesse (TGV) - Atlantique line
broad gauge: 251,153 km standard gauge: 710,754 km narrow gauge: 239,430 km |
| Religions | indigenous beliefs 50%, Christian 30%, Muslim 20% | Christians 32.88% (of which Roman Catholics 17.39%, Protestants 5.62%, Orthodox 3.54%, Anglicans 1.31%), Muslims 19.54%, Hindus 13.34%, Buddhists 5.92%, Sikhs 0.38%, Jews 0.24%, other religions 12.6%, non-religious 12.63%, atheists 2.47% (2000 est.) |
| Sex ratio | at birth: 1.03 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.02 male(s)/female 15-64 years: 0.97 male(s)/female 65 years and over: 0.69 male(s)/female total population: 0.98 male(s)/female (2006 est.) |
at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.05 male(s)/female 15-64 years: 1.02 male(s)/female 65 years and over: 0.78 male(s)/female total population: 1.01 male(s)/female (2002 est.) |
| Suffrage | 18 years of age; universal | - |
| Telephone system | general assessment: NA
domestic: fair system of open-wire, microwave radio relay, and cellular connections international: country code - 229; satellite earth station - 7 (Intelsat-Atlantic Ocean); fiber optic submarine cable (SAT-3/WASC) provides connectivity to Europe and Asia |
general assessment: NA
domestic: NA international: NA |
| Telephones - main lines in use | 76,300 (2005) | NA |
| Telephones - mobile cellular | 386,700 (2005) | NA |
| Television broadcast stations | 1 (2001) | NA |
| Terrain | mostly flat to undulating plain; some hills and low mountains | the greatest ocean depth is the Mariana Trench at 10,924 m in the Pacific Ocean |
| Total fertility rate | 5.2 children born/woman (2006 est.) | 2.7 children born/woman (2002 est.) |
| Unemployment rate | NA% | 30% combined unemployment and underemployment in many non-industrialized countries; developed countries typically 4%-12% unemployment (2001 est.) |
| Waterways | 150 km (on River Niger along northern border) (2005) | - |
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