58 Fun Facts About Ivory Coast

Which city has been the official capital of Ivory Coast since 1983?

Yamoussoukro was named the capital in 1983, but the transfer went so slowly that most of the government stayed put in the old capital on the coast.

Which port city is Ivory Coast's largest city and economic centre?

Abidjan was cut off from the sea by a sandbar until a canal opened its lagoon to ocean ships, and it soon became the main port and financial centre of French-speaking West Africa.

As of 2023, Ivory Coast was the world's largest exporter of which commodity?

Cocoa beans have come at a cost: most of the country's forest has been cleared within living memory, with cocoa plantations the leading cause.

Which Ivorian midfielder was named African Footballer of the Year four years running, from 2011 to 2014?

Yaya Touré won all four while at Manchester City, where his goals from midfield helped the club end a 44-year wait for the English league title in 2012.

In the 1970s Ivory Coast overtook which neighbour as the world's top grower of its main crop?

Ghana had long led the world, but its harvests fell sharply in the 1970s as ageing, diseased trees and low prices paid to farmers took their toll, and its neighbour moved ahead.

European traders named West African shores after their main goods, so what was Liberia's coast called?

Pepper Coast came from melegueta pepper, the 'grains of paradise' traded there, which is why the same shore was also known as the Grain Coast.

In the 1980s, Ivory Coast's government asked other countries to stop doing what to its name?

Translating it had given the country a different name in every language, so the government asked for Côte d'Ivoire everywhere, though outlets such as the BBC kept saying Ivory Coast.

Who was the first president of Ivory Coast, ruling from independence in 1960 until his death in 1993?

Félix Houphouët-Boigny was a doctor and wealthy planter who entered politics in 1944 by organising African farmers against rules that favoured European settlers.

In 1946, a French law named after Ivory Coast's future first president abolished what across France's African colonies?

Forced labour had sent villagers to work on roads and European plantations, and the deputy's own planters' union had demanded its abolition since 1944.

Black and White in Color, which won Ivory Coast an Oscar in 1977, is set during which war?

World War I news arrives months late at a remote French outpost in this satire. Its director was French, but the film was co-produced and shot in Ivory Coast, so it was entered under that country's flag.

Guinness lists Ivory Coast's Basilica of Our Lady of Peace as what?

Largest church in the world on its completion in 1989, it was built at the first president's wish and then handed to the Vatican as a gift.

Which pope consecrated Ivory Coast's Basilica of Our Lady of Peace?

John Paul II agreed to consecrate it only if a hospital was built nearby; he blessed the first stone in 1990, but the hospital opened some 25 years later.

Ivory Coast's Basilica of Our Lady of Peace was inspired by which famous church?

St Peter's in Rome took 120 years to build, while its Ivorian echo, with a similar dome and colonnaded plaza, went up in about four.

The Ivorian flag is a vertical tricolour of which colours, from hoist to fly?

Orange, white, green was adopted in 1959 as three stripes echoing the French Tricolour, a design the flag scholar Whitney Smith tied to the country's closeness to France.

The Ivorian flag closely resembles, in reverse, the flag of which European country?

Ireland's flag is the same tricolour reversed, so when an Ivorian sprinter won world indoor gold in 2018 with no flag to hand, she borrowed one from Irish fans and turned it round.

The Ivory Coast national football team is nicknamed after which animal?

Elephants also head the national coat of arms, as the country's largest animal and the one whose ivory gave it its name.

Ivory Coast won the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations on home soil by beating which team in the final?

Nigeria led at half-time, but the hosts won 2–1 with a late goal from Sébastien Haller, who had been diagnosed with cancer only 19 months earlier.

As of 2025, who is the Ivory Coast national team's all-time leading goalscorer, with 65 goals?

Didier Drogba is best remembered at Chelsea for the 2012 Champions League final, where he headed a late equaliser and then scored the winning penalty in the shootout.

After Ivory Coast qualified for the 2006 World Cup, its players knelt on television and begged the warring sides to do what?

Lay down their weapons and hold elections was the plea the team's star striker made from the dressing room in Sudan, and in 2007 he helped move a home qualifier to the rebels' capital.

At the 2026 World Cup, Ivory Coast first did what?

Reaching the knockouts had escaped the team in three group-stage exits from 2006 to 2014, the last to a stoppage-time Greek penalty; in 2026 it finally made the round of 32.

Which former IMF official won Ivory Coast's disputed 2010 presidential election?

Alassane Ouattara had been kept out of the 1995 and 2000 races by rules on candidates' parentage, and in 2010 his victory led to four months of fighting before he could govern.

Which former Ivorian president was the first former head of state taken into International Criminal Court custody?

Laurent Gbagbo was arrested in 2011 after refusing to accept defeat in the 2010 election, but the court acquitted him of all charges in 2019 and he flew home in 2021.

Which president promoted 'Ivoirité' in the 1990s to exclude a rival with northern parents from the presidency?

Henri Konan Bédié's parentage rule kept his main rival out of the 1995 election, and four years later he was toppled in the first coup in the country's history.

After the failed 2002 coup, rebels made which city, Ivory Coast's second largest, their headquarters?

Bouaké stayed in rebel hands for years while French and UN peacekeepers held a ceasefire line between the rebel north and the government south.

How did France respond when an Ivorian airstrike killed nine of its soldiers in 2004?

Destroyed its air force: French troops wrecked the jets and helicopters on the ground the same day, and the anti-French riots that followed saw more than 4,500 foreigners flown out.

Which UNESCO World Heritage site was the French colonial capital of Ivory Coast in the 1890s?

Grand-Bassam lost the role after a yellow fever epidemic in 1899 killed most of its European residents, and its faded colonial quarter is what UNESCO listed in 2012.

The Muslim trading city of Kong in northern Ivory Coast was destroyed in the 1890s by which resistance leader?

Samori Ture destroyed Kong while carving out a new empire in the north, but the French captured him in 1898 and sent him into exile in Gabon, where he died two years later.

Ivory Coast's Baoulé and Agni kingdoms were founded by migrants fleeing which empire to the east?

The Ashanti succession struggle drove Queen Abla Pokou and her followers west to found the Baoulé kingdom; in legend she gave up her infant son so they could cross a river.

The Ivorian coastal towns of San-Pédro and Sassandra were named by sailors from which country?

Portugal's sailors reached this coast in the 1470s and named its river mouths for Saints Peter and Andrew, which is why two towns in a French-speaking country carry such names.

Ivory Coast's one long-distance railway runs north from its main port to which landlocked neighbour's capital?

Ouagadougou is the capital of Burkina Faso, which has no coast, so the single track is its rail route to the sea, with about half the line on each side of the border.

Which broad ethnic family, which includes the Baoulé, is the largest in Ivory Coast?

Akan peoples moved in from the east around 1700, and one of them, the Baoulé, later gave the country its first president, himself a hereditary chief.

According to the 2021 census, which is the largest religion in Ivory Coast?

Islam is strongest in the north and Christianity in the south, a divide that hardened into a front line when civil war split the country in 2002.

Which language of Muslim traders is the market language of northern Ivory Coast?

Dyula was carried along the trade routes by Muslim merchants who had dealt in gold since medieval times, so it became the common language of markets far beyond their own communities.

Nouchi, which has spread among young people in Ivory Coast's biggest city, is what?

A creolised French dialect, Nouchi borrows from the country's many languages, and it travelled abroad in song: the hit title 'Premier Gaou' is Nouchi for 'first fool'.

The Ivorian staple attiéké is a couscous-like side dish made from what?

Grated cassava is mixed with a fermented starter, pressed and steamed into grains, know-how that UNESCO added to its intangible heritage list in 2024.

Alloco, a common Ivorian street food, is what fried in palm oil?

Plantain, fried ripe in palm oil, is such a fixture of street life that a food court in the country's biggest city is known as the Allocodrome.

Kedjenou is an Ivorian dish of chicken and vegetables traditionally prepared how?

Slow-cooked in a sealed pot: the clay canari is closed tight, usually with little or no added liquid, so the chicken stews in its own juices and the flavours concentrate.

Seydou Koné is the birth name of which Ivorian reggae star?

Alpha Blondy broke through with 'Brigadier Sabari', a song on his first album that turned his own arrest and rough treatment by the police into a plea for mercy and a protest hit.

Which 2014 single by the Ivorian group behind 'Premier Gaou' was played whenever France scored at the 2018 World Cup?

Magic in the Air was written for the 2014 World Cup, with lyrics in French apart from its title line, and four years later it greeted every goal of France's title run.

The Ivorian dance music coupé-décalé is usually said to take its name from slang meaning what?

To cheat and run away is the usual reading, though others are told: the style grew up in the early 2000s among Ivorians in Paris nightclubs, who flaunted designer clothes and threw banknotes to the crowd.

The Hôtel Ivoire, a prestige project of newly independent Ivory Coast, became famous for which unexpected amenity?

An ice rink in the tropics was the showpiece of the 1960s hotel complex, alongside a bowling alley and a cinema, though the rink has since closed.

Taï National Park, one of West Africa's last primary rainforests, gave its name to a species of which virus?

Ebola's Taï Forest species has infected one known person: a scientist who fell ill in 1994 after examining a dead chimpanzee during an outbreak among the park's apes.

Which savanna park in north-eastern Ivory Coast is one of the largest protected areas in West Africa?

Comoé spent 14 years on the World Heritage danger list after civil war left it open to poachers, and came off in 2017 once chimpanzees and other animals thought lost were found breeding again.

What did hosts Ivory Coast do midway through the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations, the tournament they went on to win?

Sacked their head coach: after a 4–0 home defeat in the group stage the team went to assistant Emerse Faé, who had never led a senior side, and he won all four knockout ties.

The ending 'kro' in Ivorian place names such as Dimbokro means what in the Baoulé language?

Town, or village, is what 'kro' means, which is how a place once called N'Gokro could be renamed in honour of the Baoulé queen who ruled it by adding her name in front.

Zaouli, the masked dance of Ivory Coast's Guro people that UNESCO listed in 2017, is a tribute to what?

Feminine beauty is the theme, yet the dancer behind the mask is always a man; there are seven types of Zaouli mask, each with a legend of its own.

In February 2025, France handed over its only military base in Ivory Coast, which was renamed after whom?

The nation's first army chief gave his name to the former home of France's 43rd Marine Infantry Battalion, which was disbanded as Paris pulled its troops out of one West African country after another.

Aya of Yopougon, Marguerite Abouet's hit series about a teenager in 1970s Ivory Coast, takes which form?

Graphic novels: Abouet drew on her own childhood to show teenagers' everyday lives, a deliberate contrast with the war and famine of most stories told about Africa.

Ivory Coast's southern coastline lies on which body of water?

Gulf of Guinea surf is heavy and the coast has no natural harbours, so the country's main port had to be made by cutting a canal through to a sheltered lagoon.

Which of these countries shares a land border with Ivory Coast?

Mali borders Ivory Coast to the north and, having no coast of its own, is a big customer: in 2023 it was the third-largest buyer of Ivorian exports.

In which combat sport did Cheick Cissé win Ivory Coast's first Olympic gold medal, at Rio 2016?

Taekwondo gold came with a last-gasp kick in the final against Britain's Lutalo Muhammad, turning defeat into victory, and Ruth Gbagbi added a bronze at the same Games.

The word 'Akwaba', widely used in Ivory Coast, means what?

Welcome is the meaning in the Baoulé language, which is why the mascot that greeted visitors to the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations was named Akwaba.

As of 2025, what is Ivory Coast's currency?

West African CFA franc notes are shared by eight countries and pegged to the euro, and a long-planned replacement, the eco, has been postponed several times.

Which animals, held sacred, live in the lakes around the presidential palace in Ivory Coast's capital?

Crocodiles here were once fed by the first president himself, and for more than 30 years their keeper fed them before crowds of tourists.

Which shy forest animal, found wild only in West Africa, survives in Ivory Coast's south-western rainforest?

Pygmy hippopotamus numbers in the wild are put at under 2,500, even as Moo Deng, a calf born in a Thai zoo, became a worldwide internet star in 2024.

Who scored the winning penalty in the shoot-out that won Ivory Coast the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations final?

The goalkeeper, Boubacar Barry, settled it 9–8: after every outfield player had taken a kick, he saved from his opposite number and then scored past him.

Which Ivorian defender was a mainstay of Arsenal's unbeaten 'Invincibles' title season of 2003–04?

Kolo Touré arrived at Arsenal on trial in 2002 as an unknown utility player, and two seasons later he was first-choice centre-back in the side that won the league without losing a game.

Bingerville, near Ivory Coast's biggest city, is named after Louis-Gustave Binger, who held which post?

Colonial governor from 1893, Binger had made his name as an explorer by showing that the Mountains of Kong, a range drawn across maps of West Africa for decades, did not exist.