Geography

Côte d'Ivoire (the 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. In total, Côte d'Ivoire comprises 322,460 km sq, of which 318,000 km sq is land and 4,460 km sq is water, which makes the country slightly larger than Italy, or two and a half times the size of England.

The southeastern region of Cote d'Ivoire is marked by coastal inland lagoons that start at the Ghanaian border and stretch 300 km (190 miles) along the eastern half of the coast. The southern region, especially the southwest, is covered with dense tropical moist forest. The Eastern Guinean forests extend from the Sassandra River across the south-central and southeast portion of Côte d'Ivoire and east into Ghana, while the Western Guinean lowland forests extend west from the Sassandra River into Liberia and southeastern Guinea.

The mountains of Dix-Huit Montagnes region, in the west of the country near the border with Guinea and Liberia, are home to the Guinean montane forests. The Guinean forest-savanna mosaic belt extends across the middle of the country from east to west, and is the transition zone between the coastal forests and the interior savannas. The forest-savanna mosaic interlaces forest, savanna and grassland habitats. Northern Côte d'Ivoire is part of the West Sudanian savanna, a savanna-and-scrubland zone of lateritic or sandy soils, with vegetation decreasing from south to north.

The terrain is mostly flat to undulating plains, with mountains in the northwest. The lowest elevation in Côte d'Ivoire is at sea level on the coasts, whilst the highest elevation is Mount Nimba, at 1,752 m in the far west of the country along the border with Guinea and Liberia.