Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire

Skyline of downtown Abidjan
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Abidjan.JPG
Author: Zenman


Abidjan is the biggest city and former capital of Côte d'Ivoire. Covering 2,119 sq km (818 sq mi), Abidjan has a population of 3.6 million (2012 estimate), within a metropolitan area of 6.1 million people. It is the second largest city in West Africa after Lagos, and the third largest French-speaking city in the world after Paris and Kinshasa.

Abidjan developed out of a small native fishing village at the end of the 19th century, when the French colonists relocated there to get away from areas with yellow fever epidemics. Its growth accelerated when a wharf was built there in 1991. Then in 1933, it was made the capital of Côte d'Ivoire, then a constituent unit of the Federation of French West Africa.

Abidjan is the third city to become the capital after Grand-Bassam and Bingerville, but this was not to last permanently. In 1983, President Félix Houphouët-Boigny relocated the capital to his birthplace, Yamoussoukro, which is in a central part of the country. Since then, Abidjan has suffered from a variety of issues from political neglect to general degradation and corruption.

Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Abidjan_Centre_2.JPG
Author: Axe

Visiting Abidjan

The Port Bouet Airport (ABJ) is the airport serving Abidjan. Located 16 km to the southeast of the city, it receives flights from Accra, Addis Ababa, Bamako, Beirut, Bobo Dioulasso, Brussels, Casablanca, Conakry, Cotonou, Dakar, Douala, Dubai, Istanbul, Kigali, Lagos, Libreville, Lomé, Nairobi, Ouagadougou, Paris and Tunis, among others.

Street view of Abidjan
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Abidjan_Centre_3.JPG
Author: Axe

Places of Interest in Abidjan

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About this website

Dear visitor, thank you so much for reading this page. My name is Timothy Tye and my hobby is to find out about places, write about them and share the information with you on this website. I have been writing this site since 5 January 2003. Originally (from 2003 until 2009, the site was called AsiaExplorers. I changed the name to Penang Travel Tips in 2009, even though I describe more than just Penang but everywhere I go (I often need to tell people that "Penang Travel Tips" is not just information about Penang, but information written in Penang), especially places in Malaysia and Singapore, and in all the years since 2003, I have described over 20,000 places.

While I try my best to provide you information as accurate as I can get it to be, I do apologize for any errors and for outdated information which I am unaware. Nevertheless, I hope that what I have described here will be useful to you.