The Republic of the Ivory Coast, on the south coast of the western bulge of Africa, is bordered to the north by Mali and Burkina Faso, to the east by Ghana, to the south the Gulf of Guinea of the Atlantic Ocean and to the west by Liberia and Guinea.

Land and People

The Côte d'Ivoire's geographic make-up is fairly simple. From a coastal lowland, including many fine beaches, the terrain gradually rises to a smooth forest plateau in the central region and then to upland savannas in the north. Rainfall is heavy, particularly in the low coastal region; the rainy season is from May to October.
The population of the Ivory Coast is approx 16,400,000 (est. July 2001).
There are more than 60 ethnic groups, the key ones being the Baoulé in the center, the Agri in the east, the Senufo in the north, the Dioula in the northwest and west, the Bété in the center-west and the Dan-Yacouba in the west. Houphouët-Boigny promoted his own group, the Baoulé, who account for 23% of the population. The succession of Konan Bédié, another Baoulé, has annoyed many groups, the Bété in particular.
Migrants from other west African countries account for up to 40% of the population.

Economy

Salient Features: Economy oriented toward private enterprise with extensive government participation through parastatals, investment, and tax policies. Foreign investment welcomed; multinational corporations heavily involved in two-thirds of largest thirty businesses dealing in commodity exports, food processing, oil refining, textiles, beverages, construction, and commercial wholesaling and retailing. Country's principal resource agricultural land. Major food crops yams, cassava, rice, maize, and plantains.
Agriculture: Thirty-four percent of population engaged in subsistence farming. Cash cropping on small plots (coffee, cocoa, and cotton) and large plantations (bananas, palm oil, pineapples, rubber, and sugar). Agriculture second largest contributor to gross domestic product (GDP--see Glossary) and main source of exports. In late 1990s, not self-sufficient in food production.
Manufacturing: Import substitution consumer goods, some intermediate inputs for domestic markets, and food processing-- coffee, cocoa, and sugar--for export. Most industry required imported intermediate materials.
Mining: Some diamonds, manganese, iron ore, cobalt, bauxite, copper, nickel, colombo-tantalite, ilmenite, and gold, but none in significant amounts; offshore oil met about two-thirds of local needs.
Energy: Rural population heavily dependent on wood; urban population, on electric power, natural gas, and kerosene.
Foreign Trade: Principal exports cocoa, coffee, and timber; other exports cotton, sugar, rubber, palm oil, and pineapples. Principal imports petroleum products, machinery, and transport equipment.

Government

 Constitution of 1960 creates republic with strong, centralized presidential government, independent judiciary, and national legislature. President and 175-member National Assembly (Assemblй Nationale) elected by universal suffrage for five-year terms. In the late 1980s, all candidates had to belong to Democratic Party of Cфte d'Ivoire (Parti Dйmocratique de Cфte d'Ivoire--PDCI), then the country's only legal party.

History

The Côte d'Ivoire lies too far west to have been significant in the 17th and 18th century development of the Guinea coast gold, and slave trade. Although a French protectorate was established over the coastal zone in 1842, the interior remained free from European control until the very end of the century. The central political figure of the Côte d'Ivoire in modern times is Felix Houphouet-Boigny, an early leader of the post-WWII nationalist cause. Houphouet-Boigny became the country's president upon its independence from France in 1960 and remained in that position until his death in December of 1993. Along the way, the Côte d'Ivoire became a model of the prosperity that seemed available through the continuation of close cooperation with former colonial powers. In the 1980s the country's economy began to suffer, and today the Ivory Coast is struggling to maintain economic and political vitality.