Ivory Coast post office adopts three-word system

Ivory Coast has adopted a new system of postal addresses that will allow the whole country to receive mail deliveries for the first time. 

Every location is identifiable by a unique combination of just three words, allocated to 3m-by-3m squares.

Until now, the head of Ivory Coast's post office told that  the service had relied on post office boxes.

But not all Ivorians will have phones with internet access needed to access their unique code via an app.

The new system is likely to help the middle classes, and make it easier for companies to deliver parcels straight to their doors.

''We have 150,000 PO boxes for a population of nearly 24 million. That means a postal address is a luxury in Ivory Coast. We have to make postal access available to everyone," La Poste Director General Isaac Gnamba-Yao told

"If we are being told to move into the digital age in which people order parcels online, we have to be able to deliver them. This technology is going to make that possible."

Those who did not have PO boxes and live on roads without official names or street number often rely on a description such as "opposite the tailors, next to the lady who sells tea" to direct someone for a delivery.

Three-word addresses

• inspecte joyeux enfiler (inspected happy thread):
• gravure neuve croyons (gravure new believe):

• what3words gives every place in the world an easy to remember address
• It has divided the globe into 57 trillion 3m (9.8ft) by 3m squares
• Each is assigned each a unique combination of three words

 

Mongolia is the only other nation to use the system, called what3words.