Name: 地理の今!コートジボワール (Geography Now! Ivory Coast (Côte D'ivoire))
Uploaded: 2021-01-14T10:20:20.000Z
Duration: 11 min 9 s
Description: VoiceTubeの動画で発音を聞きながら英語表現を覚えよう！学べる英語：

程度の副詞

There's a really strange fact about Michael Jackson in this video. You'll have to find out by watching this video.

Ha! You can't click away. I got you curious!

[Barby is speaking French, but some people (including us, the English subtitle makers) can't understand what he's saying]

Whew! Three months of Duolingo. Ha! I love this app.

Now if you don't know anything about Ivory Coast, basically, it's like Ghana's French-speaking rival in the land of chocolate.

So anyway, the Ivory Coast is located in West Africa bordered by five other countries and the Gulf of Guinea to the south.

The country is divided into twelve districts, plus two district levels autonomous cities.

Each of these cities is kind of considered like a capital, making Ivory Coast a dual capital country.

The first one being Abidjan, the largest city along the coast known as the

economic capital, and Yamoussoukro the political capital with all the government buildings,

which was deliberately built to centralize the location of political power.

The weird thing is, although the cities have mayors, since 2011,

The twelve non-autonomous districts still have yet to appoint governors,

(So technically, by legal definition, the districts are more like theoretical entities rather than actual functioning ones.

And if you really think about it, that kind of means they don't actually exist.) It's like:

"Hey, let's split this pie." "Sure!" "Now in my head, I split it into two pieces, you have to guess where I cut it..."

After Abidjan, known as the Paris of Africa, the second largest city would be Bouaké and Daloa,

which also have the largest and only two international airports being Abidjan/Félix Houphouët-Boigny International

and Bouake International. The borders with Liberia mostly run along the Cavally and

Cestos rivers; Leraba with Burkina Faso and a portion of the Black Volta with Ghana. Keep in mind that much like Ghana historically before

European colonialism, the Ivory Coast was split into various kingdoms and tribal territory clusters.

Which if we really want to get technical looks like this (talking about map)

But if we really want to summarize the parent groups it looks a little bit something like this with four-ish main branches:

the Kwa, the Kru, the Gur, and the Mande.

The Kwa branch's Akan peoples are kind of like the cousins of the Ashanti people that we mentioned in the Ghana episode.

And they make up the largest group in the Ivory Coast.

The most notable try being the Baoulê founded by Queen Puku.

Oh and at one point in the late 60s, the Sanwi people tried to break away become independent.

And I'm not even joking, they declared Michael Jackson to be their king in 1992.

So if there's one thing you need to take away from this episode it's that: Michael Jackson literally was a king in Africa.

Anyway, surprisingly the country doesn't really have any offshore islands or islets

The only real islands can be found around Abidjan Lagoon. The cool thing though is that most of

(That sounds a little weird) has wonderful open unspoiled beaches.

The bad news is almost all of it is inaccessible due to the choppy river estuaries and lack of natural ports,

hindering the development of beach towns. That means that other than Abidjan, there are virtually no coastal roads.

Otherwise some top notable sites of the Ivory Coast might include places like

Any of the National Parks like the largest one Comoé

St.Paul's Cathedral, The Civilian Museum, The Crocodile House, The Jardin Botanique de Bingerville, Paradisia Abidjan,

Sassandra has a ton of historical buildings and monuments. The beaches of Grand-Bassam, the waterfalls at Man, the Pyramid Building and finally

The Basilique Notre-Dam de la Paix or the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace the largest Basilica in the world

larger than St. Peter's in the Vatican. Sweet! I think that just about covers all of it. And speaking of sweet,

The Ivory Coast got its name from the historically major export of Ivory back centuries ago before it became super illegal. But in all honesty,

It should be called the Cocoa Coast. He he, that sounds better, Cocoa Coast or en Français Côte d'Cocao.

The Ivory Coast lies on the Sub-Saharan Africa and much like all the other West African countries,

the land is mostly flat with undulating Plains in the South with lush tropical forest

whereas the northern regions are drier and semi-arid savannas and grasslands.

Basically: By the coast, humid most. Northward bound, drier ground. Keep in mind that rule doesn't apply everywhere.

Namibia be like: By the coast, Dry. Northward, Dryer!

As mentioned before, the highest point in the West is mountain Nimba, which is basically the African version of South America's mount Roraima

which is like the peak shared by three countries. The country is fed by three main rivers and their estuaries, the Sassandra

The Komoé and the longest river the Bandama which flows into the largest lake in the central part of the country, Lake Kossou,

which was artificially created after the Kossou Dam was built on the river in 1973.

Because water is pretty much everywhere, this allows Ivory Coast to flourish in flora and fauna with over 1200 animal species and 4700 plants.

Everything from Jackals, Monkeys , Chameleons , Panthers , Pygmy hippopotamus and the national animal the African elephant can be found.

Despite the abundance of water, only about 10 percent of the land is arable as about a third of the country is forested.

Nonetheless, 75% of the workforce Uses that arable land to grow

everything from coffee, oil palms, rubber, and their pride enjoy the national crop

that they are the number one producer in the world: cocoa. Since they export so much about 25% of all exports in total,

chances are, without even knowing it, you may have already in some kind of chocolate confection made from cocoa grown here.

It's such a common commodity that half the time

farmers don't even know what it's used for. They've never had chocolate.

They just grow it because they know it's an in-demand product.

vPro metropolis did a great video showing a cocoa farmer who tried chocolate for the first time.

Check it out. It's a great video. It's a cool report.

But going back to food, dishes in the Ivory Coast pretty much follow the same West African format.

You know lots of Cassavas, Plantains, Slow simmered stews and sauces with peanuts grilled or dried fish and chicken.

However two things they definitely specialize in and love are, Attieke cassava mash with Kedjenou stew

and the famous Ivorian land snails which can grow huge and are typically grilled or eaten with sauce. The interesting thing is that

even after two civil wars in the 21st century, the Ivory Coast still moves forward as the largest economy in the

West African Economic Monetary Union. which is basically the french-speaking countries of ECOWAS.

Oh whatever, all your people are like quadrilingual!

I'm pretty sure you speak enough French to get by.

By the way ECOWAS has a really cool looking headquarters building in Togo.

The Ivory Coast actually didn't fall in the same pattern of many other African states in which a government uprising led to a dictator that ruined everything.

One man actually kind of got things moving along, and we'll talk more about him in

Okay first of all, Ivorian, that's what you call these people: Ivorians

Just getting that little PSA out there. Anyway!

The country has about 25 million people and has about 60 different tribes. These tribes are divided into

five principal ethnic groups: The largest one being the Akan people at about 42%,

The Gurs at about 18%, the Northern Mandes at about 16%

Krous at about 11% and Southern Mandes at 10%. Whereas the rest are made up of other people groups mostly other

Africans from abroad and non Africans like Lebanese and French people. They use the West African CFA franc as their currency

And they drive on the right side of the road. Now the Ivorian people are quite diverse

However as a former French colony, the French language kind of unites them all. Nonetheless out of the 65 ish languages spoken throughout the country,

The Kwa language have the most speakers and the second probably belongs to the Dyula language in the West which is related to the

Mande and Mandinka languages that we already discussed in The Gambia and Guinea episodes.