Transport and infrastructure in Benin
Our listing of the primary types of transport compares the infrastructure of Benin with the average of all countries in Africa. The traffic routes have noticeable defects in many places and are often not in particularly good condition.In terms of the length of its rail network, Benin ranks 118th in the world with 0.03 meters per inhabitant. In total, the rail network is 438 kilometers long.
The waterways listed refer to inland traffic on rivers and canals. The number of ports includes those located on the 121 km of coastline. In 2019, about 510,895.60 freight containers were transported.
› Airports in Benin
Back to overview: Benin
Road traffic
The network of roads and highways has a total length of 16,000 km. For each of the country's 13.00 million inhabitants, this corresponds to 1.23 meters. This puts Benin in 193rd place in the global ranking. However, the country's size and population density of around 113 inhabitants per km² must also be taken into account. Countries with fewer inhabitants in the same or even larger area naturally achieve quite different values here and have to connect remote areas to the transport network despite a smaller population.With an average of 3127 traffic fatalities per year (2013 - 2019), road traffic in Benin is considered quite dangerous. This corresponds to 27.1 accident fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants per year. By comparison, this figure is 12.3 in the USA and 17.0 worldwide.
In Benin, traffic drives on the right-hand side of the road, i.e. people drive in the right-hand lane and overtake on the left. Oncoming traffic comes toward you on the left side. Here you can also find an overview of all countries with left-hand traffic.
Benin | |||
| total | per 1 mio inhabitants | per km² | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roadways | 16,000 km | 1,231.06 km | 139.42 m |
| Railroads | 400 km | 33.70 km | 3.82 m |
| Waterways | 150 km | 11.54 km | 1.31 m |
| Commercial harbors | 6 | 0.46 | 0.000 |
| Airports | 1 | 0.08 | 0.009 |
Africa | |||
| total | per 1 mio inhabitants | per km² | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roadways | 2,997,800 km | 2,151.40 km | 98.86 m |
| Railroads | 88,600 km | 63.57 km | 2.92 m |
| Waterways | 68,400 km | 49.09 km | 2.26 m |
| Commercial harbors | 7,949 | 5.70 | 0.000 |
| Airports | 413 | 0.30 | 0.000 |
Data sources used
• Global Health Observatory Data Repository (World Health Organization)• UNCTAD
• Internation Union of Railways (UIC)
• CIA Factbook
• OECD Statistics
• Wikipedia (german)
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