Cotonou is the largest city in Benin. Its official population count was 679,012 inhabitants in 2012; however, over two million people live in the larger urban area.

Fon also known as Dahomean is the language of the Fon people. It belongs to the Gbe group within the larger Atlantic–Congo family. It is primarily spoken in Benin, as well as in Nigeria, Togo, Ghana and Gabon, by approximately 2.28 million speakers. Like the other Gbe languages, Fon is an isolating language with a SVO basic word order.