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Yamoussoukro

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: African Geography

   The District of Yamoussoukro is the official capital city of Côte
   d'Ivoire. A city of 200,659 inhabitants as of 2005, and located 240
   kilometers north of Abidjan on rolling hills and plains, the
   municipality covers 3,500 km² (1,351.3 mi²) and is coterminous with the
   Department of the same name. The Department and municipality is further
   split into four sub-prefectures: Attiégouakro, Didiévi, Tié- diékro and
   the Commune of Yamoussoukro, which contain 169 villages and hamlets.

   The current governor of district is N'Dri Koffi Apollinaire.

History

Colonial period history

   Chief Yamousso, the niece of Kouassi N'Go, ran the village of N'Gokro
   at the time of French colonization. The village then comprised 475
   inhabitants, and was one of 129 Akoué villages.

   Diplomatic and commercial relations were then established but, in 1909,
   on the orders of the Chief of Djamlabo, the Akoué revolted against the
   administration. Bonzi station, seven kilometers from Yamoussoukro on
   the Bouaflé road, was set on fire, and the French administrator, Simon
   Maurice, was spared only by the intervention of Kouassi N'Go. This
   respected former leader persuaded the Akoué not to wage a war which
   could only have turned into a disaster.

   As the situation returned to normal, Simon Maurice, judging that Bonzi
   had become unsafe, decided to transfer the French military station to
   Yamoussoukro, where the French Administration built a pyramid to the
   memory of Kouassi N'Go, Chief of the Akoué, and in homage to Yamousso,
   N'Gokro was renamed Yamoussoukro.

   In 1919, the civil station of Yamoussoukro was removed, and Félix
   Houphouët-Boigny became the leader of the village in 1939. A long
   period was passed where Yamoussoukro, small agricultural town, remained
   in the shadows, until after the war, when it saw the creation of the
   African Agricultural Trade Union, and first conferences of its Chief.
   But it was only with Independence that Yamoussoukro finally started to
   rise.

History since independence

   After 1964, the President Félix Houphouët-Boigny made ambitious plans
   and started to build. One day in 1965, later called the Great Lesson of
   Yamoussoukro, he visited the plantations with the leaders of the
   county, inviting them to transpose to their own villages the efforts
   and agricultural achievements of the region. On July 21, 1977,
   Houphouët offered its plantations to the State.

   In March 1983, Yamoussoukro became the political and administrative
   capital of Côte d'Ivoire, after, in one century, Grand-Bassam (1893),
   Bingerville (1900) and Abidjan (1933). The majority of economic
   activity still takes place in Abidjan.

Highlights

   Yamoussoukro is also the site of what is claimed to be largest
   Christian place of worship on Earth: The Basilica of Our Lady of Peace
   of Yamoussoukro, consecrated by Pope John Paul II on September 10,
   1990.

   Also noteworthy are the Kossou Dam, the Félix Houphouët-Boigny
   Foundation, the PDCI-GDR House, the various schools of the
   Félix-Houphouët-Boigny-Boigny Polytechnic Institute, the international
   airport (with an average of six hundred passengers and 36 flights in
   1995, it is the only airport in Africa that can accommodate the
   Concorde), the Town Hall, the Protestant Temple, the Mosque, and the
   Palace of Hosts.

   On November 6, 2004, Yamoussoukro Airport was attacked by French
   infantry after military aircraft from the airport bombed a UN
   peacekeeper base as well as rebel targets and 9 French peacekeepers and
   one U.S. civilian were killed. Two Ivory Coast Sukhoi Su-25 aircraft
   and several Mil Mi-24 helicopters were destroyed, which was most of the
   country's air forces. Mobs and rebels tried to attack the French forces
   after the airport raid.

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