Abomey

Abomey

The capital of Benin's Zou department, Abomey is a collection of the Abomey Royal Palaces, a collection of small traditional houses inhabited by the kings of Dahomey between 1600 and 1900, which was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1985. The town of Abomey was established in the 17th century as the capital of the Kingdom of Dahomey, on the site of the former village of Kana. In the 1700s, Dahomey expanded rapidly, annexing many of the surrounding kingdoms and making a fortune from the slave trade. On November 16, 1892, after numerous attempts, the French conquered the kingdom, prompting King Béhanzin to burn the city and flee north. Subsequently, the city's importance declined, a process accelerated when the French built a new administrative center, Bohicon, immediately to the east. Today the city's importance has declined, but it is still attractive for tourists and as a craft center. The city was encircled by a mud wall, approximately 10 kilometers in circumference, pierced by six gates and protected by a five-foot-deep ditch filled with dense acacia trees, a common defensive feature of West African forts. Inside the walls were villages divided by fields, a number of royal palaces, a market square and a large square where the barracks were located. Of the original 12 palaces, only 10 survived from the burning of Béhanzin, the last king of Dahomey, in 1892. Later on, the French colonial administration rebuilt the town and joined it to the coast by rail.