How many babies are born in Benin each year?

An estimated 494 thousand babies are born in Benin in 2026, according to the UN World Population Prospects 2024 medium projection. That is about 1,353 a day and 0.37% of all births worldwide.

What is the birth rate in Benin?

Benin has an estimated 32.6 births per 1,000 people in 2026, and a total fertility rate of 4.34 children per woman.

Africa · Western Africa

How many babies are born in Benin?

494 thousand babies born in Benin in 2026 — 0.37% of all births worldwide, and the 57th largest of any country. UN projection

1,353births per day
56per hour
1per minute
32.6births per 1,000 people
4.34children per woman
15.17 millionpopulation

Plus or minus about 6%. These years have not happened yet or have not been counted yet. They are the medium variant of the UN's projection, not a record of births that took place.

Births in Benin through history

Estimated annual births in Benin, 0 CE to 2026, on a logarithmic scale. The shaded band on the left marks the years where births are modelled rather than recorded. The marker sits on 2026.

Every figure refers to the area inside Benin's present-day borders. Before 1800 the state did not exist in its current form — see how borders are handled.
Year	Estimated births	Population	Per 1,000	Evidence
1 CE	~18K	~420K	41.4	Modelled estimate
1000	~67K	~1.6M	41.4	Modelled estimate
1500	~120K	~3M	40.8	Modelled estimate
1800	~24.8K	~637K	38.9	Historical reconstruction
1900	~46.9K	~1.19M	39.5	Historical reconstruction
1950	92K	2.25M	40.9	UN estimate
2000	304K	7.22M	42.1	UN estimate
2024	483K	14.5M	33.4	UN projection
2026	494K	15.2M	32.6	UN projection

What the numbers show

Annual births in Benin are at their highest in the whole run of estimates in 2026, at about 494K. That is roughly 28 times the estimated ~17.5K births a year in 1 CE.

At 4.34 children per woman, fertility in Benin is above the level of about 2.1 that would hold a population steady over the long run without migration.

See Benin on the map

Where these numbers come from

2026 figures are the UN World Population Prospects 2024 medium variant. Earlier years come from the UN's estimates (1950 onward), Gapminder's reconstructions (1800–1949) and a model applied to HYDE population estimates (before 1800). The full chain is set out in the methodology, and every source is listed on the sources page.