BENIN - Abomey

Abomey is the former capital of the ancient Kingdom of Dahomey (c. 1600–1904), which would later become a French colony, then the Republic of Dahomey (1960–1975), and is now the modern-day Republic of Benin. From 1625 to 1900 twelve kings succeeded one another at the head of the powerful Kingdom of Abomey. The city houses the Royal Palaces of Abomey, a collection of small earthen structures 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 town was surrounded by a mud wall with a circumference estimated at six miles, pierced by six gates, and protected by a ditch five feet deep, filled with a dense growth of prickly acacia and according our guide, with a lot of snakes and crocodiles.