Did You Know This Ancient Nigerian City Had Street Lights Before London?

In school, many Nigerians were taught that African civilisations lagged behind the rest of the world. We were primitive, dark, uncivilised. But that’s a lie. History tells a very different story.

Before the street lights of 17th-century London, there was Benin City, an ancient Nigerian capital that lit its streets at night and stunned European visitors with its sophistication.

Long before London installed its first street lamps in 1684, Benin City was already illuminated, not by electricity, but by an ingenious system of large lamps and torches placed along its beautifully structured roads.

READ MORE: 10 Interesting Facts About African Cities You Didn't Know

The Kingdom of Benin: A city ahead of its time

Located in present-day Edo State, Benin City was the capital of the Kingdom of Benin, one of Africa’s most advanced precolonial civilisations. 

When Portuguese explorers arrived in the 1470s, they were stunned. The streets were wide and clean, with drainage systems. Houses were neatly arranged. The city had trade, art, and ceremony. The walls of Benin stretched over 16,000 kilometres and are considered by some scholars to be one of the largest man-made structures in the world, even rivalling the Great Wall of China.

Fred Pearce, a Science writer and Public speaker, wrote:

And at night? The streets came alive.

Benin street lighting 

The earliest European visitors, including Dutch and Portuguese traders, wrote accounts of how the Oba (king) had the streets of Benin lit at night.

These weren’t electric lights, of course, but they served the same purpose: visibility, safety, and ambience. It was a form of early urban lighting, many decades before London adopted oil lamps in the late 1600s.

SEE MORE: Did the Benin kingdom come out of the Yoruba kingdom, or vice versa?

When did London get street lights?

London installed its first public street lights in 1684, using oil lamps mounted on wooden posts. It wasn’t until the early 1800s that the city introduced gas lighting, and eventually electricity.

By then, Benin City had already been practising night-time illumination for over a century, and had been globally admired for its cleanliness, order, and aesthetics.

So why isn’t this in our history books?

That’s the million-dollar question. Much of Africa’s glory, including the brilliance of Benin, was intentionally erased or downplayed during colonisation.

In 1897, the British launched a brutal invasion of Benin City, looting its treasures and setting it ablaze. Thousands of priceless bronze sculptures, ivory carvings, and palace records were stolen. The city was left in ruins.

The colonial narrative painted African kingdoms as barbaric and backwards, ignoring the fact that Benin City had achievements that surpassed parts of Europe at the time.

This is proof that Africa was never completely in the dark.

RECENT: This Nigerian tribe buries their dead in sitting position