Ivory coast

Ivory Coast
Mini Book World Cup 2010

Miss. Sandy Chaves

Laura García

Bilingual School Integral
5A

Basic Ideas

Continent: Africa
Capital: Yamoussoukro
Principal City: Abiyán
Geographic coordinates: 6 49 N, 5 17 W.
Official language: French
Independence 7 August 1960 
Population: 16.8 millions
President: Laurent Koudou Gbagbo
Religion 12% Christian, 25% Muslim,63% Traditional Beliefs
Land Size: 318,003 Sq km
Water: 4,460 Sq km
Natural resources: Petroleum, natural gas, diamonds, manganese, iron, cobalt, bauxite, copper, gold, nickel, tantalum, silica sand, clay, cocoa beans, coffee, palm oil and hydropower.

Flag Coat of arms

Abidjan
Is the economic and former official capital of Ivory Coast (the current capital is Yamoussoukro). Itis the largest city in the nation. It has, according to the authorities of the country in 2006, 5 Million residents in the metropolitan area and 4 Million residents in the municipality. Only Lagos, the former capital of Nigeria has a larger number of inhabitants in this region. Considered a cultural hub of West Africa, Abidjan is characterized by a high level of industrialization and urbanization.The city stands in Ébrié Lagoon on several converging peninsulas and islands, connected by bridges.
The city grew after the construction of a new wharf in 1931 and its designation as the capital of the then French colony in 1933. The completion of the Vridi Canal in 1951 enabled it to become an important sea port. In 1983, Yamoussoukro was designated as the nation's capital, but most governmentoffices and foreign embassies are still in A bidjan.
Country-wide, life expectancy rose from thirty-nine to fifty-one years between 1960 and 1988, and during the same period, the average annual birth rate also increased steadily to 45.9 per 1,000 populations. Fertility rates were about average for West Africa at 6.6 births per adult female. Fertility rates were lowest in Abidjan and highest inrural areas, where infant mortality also remained relatively high.
Mortality rates overall declined sharply after 1960, when one third of all infants died before the age of five. Infant mortality in the first year of life declined to 110 deaths per 1,000 births in the late 1980s. The crude death rate was just over 14 per 1,000 populations.

Flag description
Three equal vertical bands of orange(hoist side), white, and green; orange symbolizes the land (savannah) of the north and fertility, white stands for peace and unity, green represents the forests of the south and the hope for a bright future.

The Coat of Arms of

Ivory Coast in its current form was adopted in 2001. The focal point of the emblem is the head of an elephant. The elephant is symbolically important to the nationsince it is the largest animal found in Ivory Coast as well as being the source of ivory for which the nation is named. The rising sun is a traditional symbol of a new beginning. Below the elephant head is a banner containing the name of the nation.

Geography

Ivory Coast is a country of western sub-Saharan Africa. It borders Liberia and Guinea in the west, Mali and Burkina Faso in the north,Ghana in the east, and the Gulf of Guinea (Atlantic Ocean) in the south.
Topography: Southern boundary 515-kilometer coastline on Gulf of Guinea. Southeast marked by coastal lagoons; southern region, especially southwest, densely forested; northern region savanna zone of lateritic or sandy soils, with vegetation decreasing from south to north within region. Terrain mostly flat to undulatingplains, with mountains in the west.

Resources

Of the total land area of more than 322,000 square kilometers, 52 percent was considered agricultural land or slightly over 3.6 hectares per capita. Total land area fell into one of two distinct agricultural regions: the forest region (about 140,000 square kilometers) in the south and the drier savanna region (about 180,000 square kilometers) in...