Country-guessing Central Africa
The Central African countries 🇬🇭 Ghana, 🇰🇪 Kenya, 🇳🇬 Nigeria, 🇷🇼 Rwanda, 🇸🇳 Senegal, and 🇺🇬 Uganda can be very hard to distinguish at first. Fortunately, there is one key meta: the Google Streetview car. Once you know the various cars used across these African countries, you can instantly recognize each country.
Google Streetview Car
🇸🇳 Senegal
In Senegal a silver or white truck cab is visible in the gen 4 coverage.
In gen 3, you can see the Google car's roof rack.
🇬🇭 Ghana
Ghana's Google car has a visible roof rack with a black tape on the right end of the front bar.
🇳🇬 Nigeria
The Nigerian Google car is a large pickup truck with the cab and bed often visible. It can be white or red.
In gen 3, you can sometimes see the Google car's roof rack with its yellow-and-black rack pattern.
Nigeria also almost always has a police follow-car, see section below.
🇰🇪 Kenya
Kenya has a snorkel on the front of the Google Streetview car.
New coverage has a truck that can appear with a snorkel, antenna, both, or neither.
🇺🇬 Uganda
The Google car in Uganda is a boxy white SUV with square side mirrors.
🇷🇼 Rwanda
This is the Rwandan Google car. It can be white, black, or grey/brown. It's almost always visible, including its camera mount.
Driving Direction
It's helpful to also check the direction of traffic in case you can't easily identify the Google car meta.
◀️ Left-hand
🇰🇪 Kenya
🇺🇬 Uganda
▶️ Right-hand
🇬🇭 Ghana
🇳🇬 Nigeria
🇷🇼 Rwanda
🇸🇳 Senegal
Unique Metas
Police follow car
🇳🇬 Nigeria has a white police follow car. It can alternatively be a black police car, or a silver, white, black, or red SUV.
Paved streets with black/white curb
🇷🇼 Rwanda has high-quality paved roads. Black-and-white curbs are common.
French language
🇸🇳 Senegal's official language is French.
Blue license plates
🇸🇳 Senegal uses license plates with blue background.
Solider with a gun
🇺🇬 Uganda has a surprise spot where a soldier holding a gun is following you. Maybe not the most useful meta - but certainly unique!