Yamoussoukro
Abidjan is the Ivory Coast's chief port, its economic and administrative hub, its de facto capital and, when the Republic was a French colony, its political capital. Yamoussoukro was built, with elaborate buildings and spaces, by the first president of the Ivory Coast after the Republic's independence from France in 1960, at the site of his home town, in order to establish a new capital to mark the country's new independence. Its imposing capital establishment was slow to be occupied, and Abidjan resumed much of the appearance of the capital, including housing foreign embassies, however Yamoussoukro remains the Ivory Coast's official political capital.
