History

Queen Yamoussou, the niece of Kouass N’Go, ran the city of N’Gokro in 1929 at the time of French colonization. The village then comprised 429 inhabitants, and was one of 134 Akoué cities. The village of N’Gokro was renamed Yamoussoukro, the suffix Kro meaning town in Baoule.

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 21 July 1977, Houphouët offered his plantations to the State.

In March 1983, President Houphouët-Boigny made Yamoussoukro the political and administrative capital of Ivory Coast, as the city was his birthplace. This marked the fourth movement of the country’s capital city in a century. Ivory Coast’s previous capital cities were Grand-Bassam (1893), Bingerville (1900), and Abidjan (1933). The majority of economic activity still takes place in Abidjan, and it is officially designated as the “economic capital” of the country.