TERRITORY: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY
Population area fairly recent and rather limited due above all to the unfavorable environmental conditions offered by the forest, whose extension was once much greater than the current one, the Ivory Coast was presumably originally inhabited by pygmoid people, hunters and gatherers, allocated in the forest belt and of which there are still very modest groups. It was the subsequent immigration of Sudanese people dedicated to agriculture that gave rise to the first substantial stable nuclei. The current Ivorian population is very heterogeneous, having lacked a process of merging the different groups, many of which are also present in neighboring countries; it is made up of akan (42%), voltaics (18%), mande from the North (17%), krou (11%), mande from the South (10%), others (2%). anyi ei baulé, belonging to the great group of Akan; therefore similar to the Ashanti of Ghana, whence they came, they are mainly concentrated in the central-eastern regions of the country. Visit ezinesports.com for Africa demographic structure.
Among others, the main groups are: the Mande, of Sudanese origin, who came from the Niger basin and settled in the western savannah area; the senufo and the lobes, also Sudanese but belonging to the “voltaic” group and who instead inhabit the region of the eastern savannas; the various populations generically called kru (gueré, dan, dida etc.), settled in the forest region of SW, from Liberia to the Bandama and among which are sometimes also included the so-called “lagoons”, arrived from E and concentrated precisely in the band of the lagoons, where they traditionally fish. There is a lack of precise data regarding the past demographic consistency of the country; however, it is believed that the population has been stationary for a long time and that since the first half of the century. XIX was around 2 million residents. In the last forty years of the twentieth century the numerical values appear to have quadrupled, as well as due to the high birth rate, both as a result of the decreased mortality rate, resulting from improved sanitation conditions and the fight against the many serious endemic diseases, and the strong immigration from neighboring countries. In fact, the country hosts a very high contingent of foreigners, especially Africans, who come from neighboring countries (Burkina, Mali, etc.). The population density (65 residents / km²) is among the highest in the Guinean area; the areas of densest settlement are the central and southern ones around etc.). The population density (65 residents / km²) is among the highest in the Guinean area; the areas of densest settlement are the central and southern ones around etc.). The population density (65 residents / km²) is among the highest in the Guinean area; the areas of densest settlement are the central and southern ones around Abidjan, a city that, having been the capital in the past, has been a strong demographic attraction. The traditional settlement of the village, however, is still very widespread, even if in 2006 already 46% of the population was urbanized. In the meantime, with a phenomenon typical of the whole African continent, initially due to the colonial advent, cities were born on the coast but also in the interior, in the area of the forests and in the savannah. Other important centers are Bouaké, the traditional economic-cultural center of the baulé, which has experienced considerable development thanks to the installation of new industries and Yamoussoukro, the native village of Houphouet-Boigny, chosen in 1983 by the then president as the new capital of the country. It is located 220 km NW of Abidjan, at an important road junction for Guinea and Burkina. The choice of the new capital had served to ease the demographic pressure on Abidjan, which had become unsustainable.
ECONOMY: GENERAL INFORMATION
During the French colonization the country saw the development of large plantations managed by settlers from the motherland. Only in the 1920s did this form of slavery cease and the first “indigenous plantations” were born. With independence (1960) the income produced by the agricultural sector began to be invested in other economic sectors and the Ivory Coast experienced rapid and constant growth becoming a symbol of economic liberalism, despite the determined intervention of the state, and a model for all of West Africa. The industrialization process, relatively more intense and earlier than in the other neighboring states, led to the formation of a working class which, in turn, gave rise to small local entrepreneurial initiatives. per capita of US $ 1,132). Between 2002 and 2007, however, the dramatic social and political events heavily influenced the economic structure of the country. These serious tensions in which the effects of a regional ethnic division that remained very marked have suddenly re-emerged, despite the phenomena of mixing due to internal migrations and from neighboring countries, have strongly compromised the image of the Ivorian development model. Foreign investments subjected to a high rate of risk have been reduced. Even the main agricultural resource of the country, cocoa, was put in crisis by the civil war: most of the plantations of this crop, in fact, are concentrated in the northern area of the Ivory Coast, which, during the war years, found under the control of the rebels.
