INFO
CAPITAL
Yamoussoukro
POPULATION
26,260,582 (July 2018 est.)
CLIMATE
Tropical to semiarid
CURRENCY
594.3 XOF = 1 USD (Dec. 2017 est.)
IMPORTANT CITIES
Abidjan, Bouake, Korhogo, Gagnoa
AREA
322,463 sq.km.
PEOPLE
NATIONALITY
Ivoirian
MAJOR PEOPLES
Akan, Akye, Anyi, Aowin, Baule, Dan, Diomande, Lobi, Senufo, We
RELIGION
Muslim 42.9{a1a33444ee922ad961904607c501cbe84d9cddb45266103b20616805d66fa906}, Catholic 17.2{a1a33444ee922ad961904607c501cbe84d9cddb45266103b20616805d66fa906}, Evangelical 11.8{a1a33444ee922ad961904607c501cbe84d9cddb45266103b20616805d66fa906}, Methodist 1.7{a1a33444ee922ad961904607c501cbe84d9cddb45266103b20616805d66fa906}, other Christian 3.2{a1a33444ee922ad961904607c501cbe84d9cddb45266103b20616805d66fa906}, animist 3.6{a1a33444ee922ad961904607c501cbe84d9cddb45266103b20616805d66fa906}, other religion 0.5{a1a33444ee922ad961904607c501cbe84d9cddb45266103b20616805d66fa906}, none 19.1{a1a33444ee922ad961904607c501cbe84d9cddb45266103b20616805d66fa906} (2014 est.)
LITERACY
43.1{a1a33444ee922ad961904607c501cbe84d9cddb45266103b20616805d66fa906}
PRINCIPAL LANGUAGE
Dioula, Agni, Baule, Kru, Senufo, Mandinka
OFFICIAL LANGUAGE
French
POLITICS
HEAD OF STATE
Alassane Dramane Ouattara (since December 4 2010)
TYPE OF GOVERNMENT
Presidential Republic
DATE OF INDEPENDENCE
August 7, 1960
MAJOR EXPORTS
Coffee, Cocoa, Bananas, Pineapples, Palm Oil, Cotton, Fish, Timber, Petroleum
PRECOLONIAL HISTORY
Côte d’Ivoire was inhabited in the Neolithic era and possibly earlier, although the humid climate has effaced most traces of the country’s earliest civilizations. Portuguese explorers arrived in the early 1600s, and French missionaries landed near the Gold Coast (Ghana) border in 1637. European contact was limited until the 19th century, mainly due to inhospitable geography along the coastline. Akan peoples fleeing the Asante Empire in Ghana invaded the area in the 1750s, and are the largest ethnic group in Côte d’Ivoire today. In 1843—44, France sent Admiral Bouët-Willaumez to sign a treaty with the local kings and establish a protectorate. The colony became part of French West Africa and was governed from Paris until the end of World War II. Félix Houphouët-Boigny founded the first indigenous political party in 1944 (Syndicat Agricole Africain) and later its offshoot, the Parti Démocratique de la Côte d’Ivoire. He became the country’s first president when France ceded control in 1960.
POSTCOLONIAL HISTORY
After independence, Houphouët-Boigny maintained political and economic stability in Côte d’Ivoire and was re-elected until his death in 1993. The country suffered from an economic decline under the new president, Henri Konan Bédié. In 1999, Bédié was overthrown by a military junta led by General Robert Guéï. Guéï agreed to hold democratic elections the following year. Laurent Gbagbo of the Front Populaire Ivoirien was elected president in 2000, initiating a decade of civil war between the government at Abidjan and rebel groups in the north, led by Guillaume Soro. The U.N. persuaded Gbagbo to hold new elections in 2010, but he refused to cede power when defeated by Alassane Ouattara, the candidate supported by the U.N. and western powers. Gbagbo was deposed with the assistance of the French army in 2011, and many of his supporters are now in exile. Ouattara and his party, the Rassemblement des Républicains, remain in office.