The Ko of Benin

The Ko of Benin, numbering approximately 223,000 people, are Engaged yet Unreached. They are described as an ethnolinguistic community of Benin They are an Indigenous people, with Kotafon Gbe as their ethnic/kinship group and are in the Guinean people cluster of the Sub-Saharan African Peoples. Their primary religion is Animism. They primarily speak Gbe, Kotafon.

Photo by Google. (2026). Image generated by Gemini 2.5 Flash: Kotafon

Fast Facts:

Affinity Group: Sub-Saharan African Peoples
Country: Benin
People Cluster: Guinean
Primary Language(s): Gbe, Kotafon (kqk)
Primary Religion(s): Animism
Population: 223,000
Strategic Progress Index (SPI): Engaged yet Unreached
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): Less than 2% Evangelical, No Active CP Activity
People Group ID: PG012333
View on Joshua Project

Pray for the Ko of Benin

Join others around the world in praying for the lost to be saved, the gospel to advance, the global Church to grow, and for laborers to be sent out and sustained in the harvest.

Dig Deeper (Religion):

Primary Religion: Animism
Religious Affiliation: Ethnoreligion

93%
%

Dig Deeper (Language):

Primary Language: Gbe, Kotafon
Language Family: Atlantic-Congo

70%
%

Media Resources in Gbe, Kotafon:

Films:

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Bible Resources in Gbe, Kotafon:

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Or check out the Gbe, Kotafon bible at Bible.com

Linked from YouVersion

Explore Lostness and Next Steps

Unengaged and Unreached

Strategic Priority Index (SPI): Unengaged and Unreached (SPI: 1), which means there are less than 2% evangelical Christian populations among which there are no known efforts focused on establishing self-sustaining churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice.
Lostness Priority Index (LPI): Frontier Unreached People Group, (LPI: 0), < 0.1% Evangelical.
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): Less than 2% Evangelical, No Active CP Activity (GSEC: 1), this people group is less than 2% evangelical, some evangelical resources are available, but there has been no active church planting among them within the past two years

Next steps for the Ko:
Begin signifcant prayer and fasting for this group
Send cross-cultural teams to discover and research this people group
Begin gospel seed sowing and church planting among this group

SPI: Unreached yet Engaged

The Ko are Engaged yet Unreached, which means there are less than 2% evangelical Christian populations but there are sustained efforts at establishing self-sustaining churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice.

Next steps for the Ko:
Continue prayer and fasting for this group
Continue gospel seed sowing and church planting among this group
Begin training up local leaders to lead and develop strategies to reach their own people

SPI: No longer Unreached

The Ko are No Longer Unreached, which means there are more than 2% evangelical Christian populations and there are churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice. There is still more to be done among them.

Next steps for the Ko:
Empower local believers to begin praying for their own people
Continue gospel seed sowing and church planting
Encourage local leaders to being leading church planting strategy and looking for Unreached and Unengaged groups nearby

Pray specifically for the Ko of Benin

That they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us.
readActs 17:27

Pray that those who don't yet know Christ will search diligently for God and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.

Whenever you enter a town and they receive you, eat what is set before you. Heal the sick in it and say to them, "the kingdom of God has come near to you."
readLuke 10:8-9

Pray that the lost will receive messengers of the gospel with joy, turn from their sins, and be healed.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
read2 Corinthians 5:17

Pray that as people place their faith in Christ, they will understand and experience the truth that in Christ, they are a new creation, and the old has gone and the new has come.

And he said to them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest."
readLuke 10:2

Ask God to send out laborers into His harvest field, raising up believers from around the world to go and proclaim the kingdom of God with those who need to hear it.

Ko-Gbe Across Countries (ROP3 - 105083) reported in the following countries:

To download a comprehensive people group list in spreadsheet form, visit our Research Data page.

Peoplegroups.org relies on updates from the field and other organizations for much of our data, so if you have any updates, please contact us. We use various international naming standards. For a list of these standards and fields, visit our Definitions page.

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