33 Countries of Origin’ Profiles

Ivory Coast Produced by ANFE Italia (Associazione Nazionale Famiglie Emigranti) GEOGRAPHY: Côte d'Ivoire is located on the West African coast on the Gulf of Guinea. It is bounded on the west by Guinea and Liberia, on the east by Ghana, on the north by Burkina Faso and Mali, and the Atlantic Ocean to the south. Most of the people live along the sandy coastal region; apart from the capital area, the forested interior is sparsely populated. CAPITAL: The political Capital is Yamoussoukro , but the economic one is Abidjan. POPULATION: 24,184,810 million 1 LANGUAGE: French is the official language but there are so many local languages. Four of the eight major branches of the Niger-Congo language family are represented, including Kru and Kwa most spoken in the south. The Mandé and Voltaic or Gur are used in the North , but some variants of Mandé and Sénoufo can be heard in the southern trading areas. Most Ivoirians speak two or more languages fluently. Arabic is taught in Quranic schools, which are most common in the north, and is spoken by immigrants from Lebanon and Syria. 2 1 http s://ww w.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/the-world-factbook/geos/iv.html 2 http://countrystudies.us/ivory-coast/21.htm