How to Give Directions in Cotonou When Streets Have No Names

Someone asks for your address in Cotonou and you freeze. You know the way home, but you can't put it in words. The zem driver is waiting, the delivery man is calling for the third time, and "I'm near the church" is not helping anyone.

Many streets in Cotonou carry only a number on the map, like "Rue 12.164", and the last few hundred metres to a house are often small streets with no name at all. So people in Cotonou don't give addresses. They give directions. This guide shows you how to do it the local way, in four steps. To see how it works for a real place, open any page in the Ceety Boy guide to Cotonou: each place has its road route from a well-known landmark, written out turn by turn.

Look at the route to Plage de Fidjrossè from Haie Vive on Ceety Boy: Rue 12.164, Rue 12.207, Rue 12.160, Rue 12.211, then Boulevard de la Marina and the Route des Pêches. Nobody says "Rue 12.207" to a driver. The big roads and the roundabouts have names people use. The small ones don't.

It gets harder at the end of the trip. For many places, the route on Ceety Boy ends with a line like "the last 300 m are on small unnamed streets". That last stretch is exactly where visitors get lost, and it is the part your directions have to cover.

Pick the biggest landmark near you that any driver in Cotonou knows. A roundabout with a monument, a market, a big church, a bridge or a stadium. For example:

• Place de l'Étoile Rouge, the big roundabout with the largest monument of Benin's Marxist era.

• Place Lénine in Akpakpa.

• Dantokpa market, next to the Pont Martin Luther King.

• The Ancien Pont (the old bridge) near Ganhi.

• The Stade de l'Amitié Général Mathieu Kérékou.

• The airport (Aéroport Bernardin Gantin) for the west side, Fidjrossè and Cadjèhoun.

Don't start from your own street. Start from where the driver already knows the way.

From the landmark, name the big road to take, then count. "From Étoile Rouge, take the road towards the airport, then the second turning on your right after the filling station." Counting is easier for a driver than any street name. If the road has a known name, use it. If it doesn't, describe it: "the tarred road", "the road with the median", "the sand road".

This is where most directions fail. Say what is just before your gate, and on which side:

• a church, a mosque or a school;

• a pharmacy, a filling station or a shop with a big sign;

• the colour of your gate or your building.

"After the pharmacy, the third gate on the left, the blue one." That sentence gets a driver to your door.

Voice directions plus a location pin on WhatsApp is the combination that works. The pin shows the end point. Your words show the way through the small streets the map doesn't name. If you want a code instead of a pin, a Google Plus Code works too: Google describes Plus Codes as "like street addresses for people or places that don't have one".

Fill in the blanks and save it in your phone:

1. "I'm in [area], near [big landmark]."

2. "From [landmark], take [road] towards [direction]."

3. "Turn [left/right] at [the second junction / after the filling station]."

4. "Stop after [pharmacy/church/shop]. It's the [colour] gate on the [left/right]."

5. "I've sent you my location on WhatsApp."

Say it in French if you can: "Je suis à [quartier], près de [repère]." Drivers will meet you halfway.

The zémidjan is Cotonou's motorcycle taxi. The name comes from Fon and means "take me quickly". Zem drivers know the big landmarks, so start there: name the landmark first, agree on the price before you get on, then guide the last part yourself as you ride. "À gauche… tout droit… c'est ici" (left, straight on, it's here) will carry you far.

Turn the steps around. Ask for the nearest big landmark first, then the road, then what is just before the gate. If you know the place's name, look it up before you leave. On Ceety Boy, every place page shows the road route from up to four landmarks and has a "Share on WhatsApp" link, so you can send the route to a driver instead of explaining it. See it on the map: the Place de l'Étoile Rouge page on Ceety Boy is a good place to start, because so many routes in the centre begin there.

New in Cotonou? Our guide to travelling from Nigeria to Cotonou explains how to arrive by landmark, and our guide to student accommodation in Cotonou covers the areas where most newcomers live. For the big sights you will use as landmarks, read our Cotonou tourist attractions guide.

Do houses in Cotonou have street numbers?
Many streets on the map carry a number such as "Rue 12.164", but people rarely use them in conversation. Directions from a known landmark are what works.

What is the best landmark to give in Cotonou?
The biggest one near you that every driver knows: Étoile Rouge, Place Lénine, Dantokpa, the Ancien Pont, the stadium or the airport, depending on your side of town.

How do I explain my address in French?
"Je suis à [quartier], près de [repère]. Après [repère], tournez à gauche/à droite. C'est le portail [couleur] à gauche/à droite."

Is a WhatsApp location enough?
It shows the end point, not the way. Send it together with spoken directions for the last few hundred metres.

What is a Plus Code?
A short code from Google that works like an address for places that don't have one. You can find it by dropping a pin in Google Maps.

See the drive before you send it: Ceety Boy is a 3D map of Cotonou that shows the journey from a landmark to the door. The phone version is a tester build and a heavy download, so open it on Wi-Fi.