ABOUT

Ganvie, just an hour north of the city of Cotonou, is a village of roughly 20,000 people that stands on stilts in the middle of Lake Nokoué in the Republic of Benin.
Tofinu people settled here in the 16th or 17th centuries and built their lake village to escape slavers who came from the Fon tribe and were not allowed to enter water for religious reasons.
The Tofinu people built their homes on the water and in the roughly 500 years that have passed since, Ganvie has developed an intricate and prosperous culture within the constraints of life on the lake. Living next to the ocean, in Ganvie boats become a common means of transportation, fishermen live on houses on stilts and children of fishing families learn the family trade at an early age.