Cotonou Roundabouts: Names, Monuments and How to Recognise Them

Ask for directions in Cotonou and you will rarely hear a street name. You will hear "go past Étoile Rouge", "turn at Lègba", "stop after 16 Ampoules". The roundabouts are the city's real address system. Learn ten of them and you can find your way almost anywhere.

This guide goes west to east, from the airport to Akpakpa. For each one: its name, what stands on it, and how to recognise it when you arrive. Photos and the road route to each are in the Ceety Boy guide to Cotonou's monuments and statues.

Many smaller streets in Cotonou have no name on the map. A roundabout is different. It is big, it usually has a monument on it, and its name is what people use in directions. Some names come from history (Place Lénine), some from something that once stood there (Carrefour 16 Ampoules), some are recent nicknames (Carrefour Toyota). Once you know the system behind the names, the city stops looking random.

Carrefour Erevan: Bio Guéra. Near the airport, the national hero Bio Guéra rides a rearing horse with a long lance. Bio Guéra (1856–1916) was a Wassangari warrior prince from the north who fought French colonial rule. The statue was among the monuments inaugurated on 30 July 2022. It first stood at the airport roundabout and was later moved to Carrefour Erevan. Ceety Boy describes it as about ten metres tall and thirteen tonnes.

Place du Souvenir. Once called Place des Martyrs, in the Haie Vive–Cocotiers area, about 450 metres from the Palais des Congrès. A bronze group of three armed figures with a flag, about ten metres high, honours those who died in the mercenary attack of January 1977.

Place de l'Amazone. The tallest statue in this guide: 30 metres without its base, about 150 tonnes, a metal frame covered in bronze. It was inaugurated on 30 July 2022 on the Esplanade des Amazones, behind the Palais de la Marina, and honours the all-female military corps of the Kingdom of Dahomey.

Monument aux Dévoués. A fifteen-metre black granite obelisk with a gold tip, in the Jardins de Mathieu near the port. Its inscription remembers the children of Benin devoted to their homeland.

Place de l'Étoile Rouge. The biggest roundabout in Cotonou. A red five-pointed star spreads across the circle, and on top of a tall column a worker holds a rifle, a bundle of wood and a hoe. People call him "Jacob". It was built in the 1970s, during the Marxist years under Mathieu Kérékou, and it is the largest monument of that period. If someone says "Étoile", this is what they mean.

Place de Bulgarie. In Gbégamey. A statue of Georgi Dimitrov, in a dark suit, stands in front of a tall slab with an inscription, on a raised square with steps.

Carrefour 16 Ampoules. Named after an old light mast with sixteen bulbs. In April 2024 the city rebuilt it as a public square, with a golden fish on a cream column, turquoise benches and young palms. The name stayed even though the bulbs are gone.

Carrefour BIIC (former Carrefour BIBE), Jéricho: "Bénin face à son destin". A white figure leans forward with one arm stretched far ahead, on a stack of white blocks. Beside it, a mosaic pillar has an opening shaped like the map of Benin, next to a sculpted corn cob.

Carrefour Lègba, Saint-Michel. A sculpture almost seven metres tall on the island: four figures with mask heads around a column, under a blue disc and a grey globe.

Ganhi: the seated figure. On the boulevard median next to the new Ganhi market, a golden figure sits on a dark green octagonal plinth with a bowl of fruit. It appears in photos from 2019 and was still there in July 2026.

Place Lénine. The second biggest roundabout in Cotonou, in Akpakpa, built during the Marxist period. A statue of Lenin stood here until around 1990. It was taken down a few months after the democratic transition, and the stepped plinth stayed behind, empty.

See it on the map: Place Lénine on Ceety Boy, with the road route from the Ancien Pont, Ganhi and the Martin Luther King bridge.

Carrefour Ciné Concorde: La Biche à la rivière. Big grey boulders rise from a round pool, and photos from 2019 show deer sculptures on the grass beside it.

Akpakpa has more roundabouts that people use as landmarks, such as Dégakon, which appears as "Rond-point Dégakon" even in official lists like the pharmacy rota.

1. Start from the biggest one near you. "From Étoile Rouge" works across much of the centre.

2. Count, don't name. "Second turning after Lègba" is easier for a driver than a street name.

3. Add one small landmark. A church, a filling station or a pharmacy near the final turn.

4. Send a pin as well. Directions by voice plus a map pin on WhatsApp is the combination that works.

If you are new in town, our guide to travelling from Nigeria to Cotonou explains how to arrive by landmark. For the stories behind these monuments, read the history of Cotonou, and for what else to see, our Cotonou tourist attractions guide.

What is the biggest roundabout in Cotonou?
Place de l'Étoile Rouge. Place Lénine in Akpakpa is the second biggest.

Why is it called Carrefour 16 Ampoules?
After an old light mast with sixteen bulbs. The square was rebuilt in April 2024, with a golden fish on a column, but the name stayed.

Is there still a statue at Place Lénine?
No. The Lenin statue was removed around 1990, after the democratic transition. The empty plinth is still there.

Where is the Bio Guéra statue now?
At Carrefour Erevan, near the airport. It first stood at the airport roundabout.

How tall is the Amazon statue in Cotonou?
The government gives 30 metres without the base, and a total mass of about 150 tonnes.

Recognise them before you get there: Ceety Boy is a 3D map of Cotonou, and these roundabouts are being modelled for it from photos. The phone version is a tester build and a heavy download, so open it on Wi-Fi.