Benin Population

Benin has high fertility and a young population growing rapidly along the West African coast. Birth rates are declining gradually, leaving a broad base of children and a fast-rising number of young people. The challenge is familiar across the region: turning that youth into education and employment.

Benin is home to about 15.0 million people in 2026, the 76th largest population of any country. A country of Western Africa, its trajectory to 2100 is governed by how births, deaths and migration play out. It packs in roughly 135 people per square kilometre.

Benin is still growing and is not projected to peak before 2100. From about 14.3 million today it is expected to reach 24.2 million by 2050 and around 39.5 million by 2100, a rise of +176.5% across the century.

Fertility is high, around 4.48 births per woman, the engine of rapid, sustained growth.

The median age is set to climb from about 18 today to roughly 33 by 2100, while life expectancy, near 61 years, keeps rising. For now it remains one of the world's youngest populations, with a large generation about to reach working age. A rising median age means fewer working-age people supporting each retiree over time.

These figures follow the UN's medium variant, the most widely cited scenario. The low and high variants, driven mainly by differing fertility assumptions, fan out into a wide range by 2100, so treat each number as a central estimate rather than a precise forecast.