Ganvie Lake Village in Benin, West Africa is very often dubbed‚ "the Venice of Africa." This unique floating city is built completely on water, with the exception of a school, which is the only building set on dry land.

Generations of Tofinu people have lived in simple bamboo houses on stilts and fully rely on the Nokoue Lake. The only possible means of transport, or leaving one’s house as a matter of fact, is simple wooden boats cut out of tree trunks. As a result of peculiar nature of Ganvie Lake village, the ethnic Tofinu people are also described as "The Water People of Benin."


The question therefore is why did Tofinu people of Ganvie chose to live on the water houses instead of the land? According to historians during the colonial era when the Europeans made slavery their major trade, a small group of ethnic Tofinu people living outside of what is now Cotonou, Benin, took advantage of a different set of circumstances to evade capture by the Portuguese. At the time, the powerful West-African Fon tribe who had been coastal trading partners of the Portuguese was hunting and selling other native tribesman to the Portuguese.