Ganvie

Ganvie is a lake village in Benin, lying in Lake Nokoué, near Cotonou. With a population of around 20,000 people, it is probably the largest lake village in Africa and as such is very popular with tourists.The village was established in the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries by the Tofinu people, established on the lake because the slave trading tribe of the Dahomey had a religious ban on their warriors entering water, making the islands in the lagoon a safe territory for other tribes.Originally based on farming, the village's main industries other than tourism are now fishing and fish farming.