The Yoruba are unusual in Africa in their tendency to form urban communities. The old Yoruba kingdom of Oyo was traditionally one of the largest states of W Africa. It dominated both Benin and Dahomey, but after 1700 its power slowly waned. At the beginning of the 19th cent., Fulani invasions, slave raids from Dahomey, and the growing contact with Europeans divided the Yoruba into a number of small states. In the second half of the 19th cent.
Yoruba religion includes a variety of gods.
Vestiges of Yoruba culture are also found in Brazil and Cuba, where Yoruba were imported as slaves.