Banana Island, which is Nigeria’s answer to Paris’s Seventh Arrondissement, San Diego’s La Jolla, New York City’s Tribeca and Tokyo’s Shibuya and Roppongi, is a small man-made island in the Ikoyi neighborhood of Lagos.

Completed in 2000, it’s a billionaires’ paradise populated by the country’s richest and most well-known families, who savor its quiet, peaceful atmosphere far from the clamor and crowds of Lagos, the country’s largest city and financial center.

Its name comes from its distinct shape.

Boundaries

The 1.63-million-square-meter sand-filled island in Lagos Lagoon is a little more than 5 miles east of Tafawa Balewa Square, the commercial and ceremonial heart of Lagos. A dedicated road connects it to a network of roads near Parkview Estate. First Avenue in the north and Second Avenue in the sound merge and run around its perimeter.