N-Ways
Codes
In Cameroon a delivery often ends with a phone call: “After the carrefour, the blue gate opposite the snack bar.” A post-office box says nothing about where you live. From 21 October 2026, every compound in the country, every concession, villa and house, has an N-Ways code: 7,243,272 of them, from Douala to Maroua and from Bamenda to Kribi.
What a code is
A code is the name of your quarter or village and a short number, said in pairs like a phone number. Bonapriso 14 01, a compound in Douala I, is said “Bonapriso, fourteen, zero one”. Other real codes: Intendance 137 by Yaoundé’s Marché Central, Omnisports 16 66 by the Ahmadou Ahidjo stadium, Congo 15 83 by Douala’s Marché Central, T-junction 15 90 in Bamenda, Famla 12 710 in Bafoussam. The number has three digits in small places, four in most and five in the bigger and more repeated ones: Mokolo 18 834 by the Marché Mokolo. It never has more than five. The name in the code is in French or in English, the language of its arrondissement, never longer than 12 characters and two words, and the full name still works when typed.
The code belongs to the whole compound and leads to its gate, not to the middle of a roof. A compound with several houses, a kitchen and rooms for rent has one code.
On a coded street, the official address comes first
Yaoundé codes its streets, like “Rue 1.014”, and Douala numbers doors. Where the council gives an address, it stays the official address, written as the council writes it, and N-Ways shows it first: the street today, the door number as soon as it is known. The N-Ways code sits beside it, to say on the phone and to tell apart the households of a compound that share one gate.
One code, one place, in the whole country
Many names repeat: 30 places are called Adjap and 27 Melen. So every place with the same name shares one national range of numbers, one block each. Adjap 10 50 and Adjap 48 50 are in different arrondissements, and neither needs its town after it. Spellings fold together too: Ngoa-Ekellé and Ngoa Ekele, or Djoungolo and Joungolo, are one name.
A landmark is never the name: “Carrefour Laboratoire Meka” is Meka, “Mission Catholique Mokolo” is Mokolo. On a plate, a parcel or a form a code is written simply Bonapriso 14 01. There is nothing else to remember.
How to get yours
- Open N-Ways at home and tap Get my code. The app finds the compound you are in and shows its code.
- Not at home? Find your compound on the map and tap it, or drop a pin on it.
- Share it in one tap, on WhatsApp or by text. Paint it on the gate if you like.
Every code starts provisional and becomes confirmed when the people who live there agree in the app that it is right. A house too new to be on the map gets a code on the spot. Codes never change and are never given to another home.
A code for any spot
Every spot in Cameroon also has a spot code on a ten-metre grid, which works offline: CM-DLA1 E0449 N0268 for Bonapriso 14 01. It serves a stall at Marché Mokolo, a field in the West or a place with no house at all.
What a code is not
- Not a land title. It proves neither ownership nor the right to occupy a plot, and replaces neither the titre foncier nor any cadastral plan.
- Not a post-office box or a postcode. Your BP stays what it is, and Campost’s commune codes, once published, sit beside the code.
- Not about people. A code describes a place. No names of residents are stored with it.
Open for developers
The model, the engine and the code areas are open on GitHub. Couriers, banks, shops and public services can decode codes in their own systems, offline if they need to. The research paper explains every rule, with the mathematics behind it.