Benin is located in western part of Africa on the northern coast of the Gulf of Guinea. It bears land borders to the north by Niger, on the west by Togo, and on the north-west along Burkina Faso.

The coast has no natural harbours, river mouths or islands, owed to entree trouble because of sandbanks. Behind the coastline is a network of lagoons, from that of Grand Popo on the Togo border (navigable at all seasons) and united to Lake Aheme, to that of Porto-Novo on the east, in which flows Benin’s longest river, the Oueme, navigable for some 125 miles of its total of 285 miles.

Alongside Oueme, the only other outstanding river in the south is Couffo, which flows into Lake Aheme. The Mono, answering from Parahoue to Grand Pope, has the boundary with Togo and is navigable for 50 miles but subject to torrential floods in the wet season.

Benin’s northern rivers, the Mekrou, Alibory and Sota, which are tributaries of the Niger, and the Pandjari, a tributary of the Volta, are torrential and bettered by rocks. North of the narrow belt of coastal sand is a area of lateritic clay, the main oil palm area, crossed by a quaggy depression between Allada and Abomey that stretches east to the Nigerian frontier. North of the hills of Dassa, the height ranges from 200 to 500 feet, broken only by the Atakora Mountains (1,500 - 2,400 ft), extending in a southwestern direction into Togo.