Benin served as the capital of a widespread empire, which flourished from the 14th Century to the 19th century. At its maximum extent the Kingdom extended from Onitsha in the east, through the forested southwestern region of Nigeria and into the present-day nation of Benin. Ruled by the Oba of Benin, the kingdom is most famous for its treasured artefacts in bronze, iron and ivory, including bronze wall plagues and the life-sized bronze heads of kings of Benin.

According to traditional accounts, the Edo people who inhabit the Benin area invited Prince Oranmiyan of Ife (one of the Yoruba states) to remove the ruling Osigos. Oranmiyan's son, Eweka I became the first Oba of Benin. By the 15th century under Oba Ewuare (Ewuare the Great), the Oba had become paramount within the kingdom. Oba Ewuare, the first Golden Age Oba, is credited for turning Benin City into a military fortress protected by moats and walls. It was from this bastion that he launched his military campaigns and began the expansion of the Kingdom from its Edo-speaking heartlands.

The first European travellers to reach Benin were the Portuguese explorers in about 1485. A strong mercantile relationship developed, the Portuguese trading tropical products, and increasingly slaves, for European goods and guns. In the early 16th century the Oba sent an ambassador to Lisbon, and the king of Portugal sent Christian missionaries to Benin. Some residents of Benin could still speak a pidgin Portuguese in the late 19th century. The first English expedition to Benin was in 1553; and a significant trade soon grew up between England and Benin based on the export of ivory, palm-oil and pepper. Visitors in the 16th and 17th Centuries brought back to Europe tales of "the Great Benin," a fabulous city of noble buildings, ruled over by a powerful king.

Benin grew increasingly rich during the 16th and 17th centuries on the slave trade with Europe, slaves from enemy states of the interior were sold, and carried to the Americas in Dutch and Portuguese ships. The Bight of Benin's shore soon came to be known as the "Slave Coast."

The city and kingdom of Benin declined after 1700, but revived in the 19th century with the development of the trade in palm products. To preserve Benin's independence, bit by bit the Oba banned the export of goods from Benin, until the trade was exclusively in palm oil.

Benin resisted signing a protectorate treaty with Great Britain through most of the 1880s and 1890s. However, after the slaying of eight British representatives in Benin territory, a 'Punitive Expedition' was launched in 1897, in which a British force, under the command of Admiral Sir Harry Rawson, conquered and burned the city, destroying much of the country’s treasured art and dispersing nearly all that remained. The portrait figures, busts, and groups created in iron, carved ivory, and especially in brass (conventionally called "bronze") made in Benin are displayed in museums around the world.