Ganvie was founded by the Tofinu tribe, a population of West Africans skilled in fishing, who was known as "watermen" and lived on the coast of Benin before the 17th century. They moved their ...

Ganvie – whose restaurants, bars, bungalows and hotels are situated on the water – has come to be known as the "Venice of Africa." Not so long ago, most of the village's 30,000 residents had ...

Ganvie village was built in the middle of Lake Nokoué 400 years ago and its unique history starts in the era of slavery. In the 18th century, the people of the local Tofinu tribe were desperate ...

Ganvie is Africa’s largest town on stilts. In the 17th century, with the Portuguese slave trade booming in Africa, a tribe called the Tofinu fled toward Lake Nokoue, pursued by slavers of the ...

Added to the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List on October 31, 1996, the Ganvie villagers are often referred to as "water men". Dating back to the 16th and 17th centuries, Ganvié was ...