Ferkessédougou
Encyclopedia
Côte d'Ivoire
The Republic of Côte d'Ivoire or Ivory Coast is a country in West Africa. It has an area of , and borders the countries Liberia, Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana; its southern boundary is along the Gulf of Guinea. The country's population was 15,366,672 in 1998 and was estimated to be...
. Ferkessédougou is also the administrative seat of the Ferkessédougou Department
Ferkessédougou Department
Ferkessédougou Department is one of the departments of Côte d'Ivoire. It is one of four departments of Savanes Region.* Ferkessédougou...
, one of four Departments in the Savanes Region
Savanes Region
Savanes Region may refer to:*Savanes Region, Côte d'Ivoire*Savanes Region, Togo...
. The city is served by Ferkessédougou Airport
Ferkessédougou Airport
Ferkessedougou Airport is an airport serving Ferkessedougou in Côte d'Ivoire....
.
Administrative structure
The city of Ferkessédougou is the administrative seat for the Commune (municipality) of Ferkessédougou, the sous-préfecture of Ferkessédougou, and the Department of Ferkessédougou, which contains 6 sous-préfectures and a number of Communes.A 1978 law created 27 self governing Communes in Cote 'Ivoire (Communes de plein exercice), Ferkessédougou among them. The Commune is the administrative seat (chef-lieu) of its sous-préfecture and Department.
The Commune
Communes of Côte d'Ivoire
The Communes of Côte d'Ivoire are the third-level units of administratiion in Côte d’Ivoire. The Departments of Côte d'Ivoire are split into communes.- A :* Abengourou* Abié* Abigui* Abobo* Aboisso* Aboisso-Comoé* Abolikro* Abongoua* Abongoua...
, (titled a collectivité territoriale), is administered by a Municipal Council, presided over by a Mayor. Le Department (also a collectivité territoriale) is governed by a General Council (conseil général) presided over by a président. The sous-prefecture ( an administrative subdivision, or a circonscription administrative déconcentrée) carries out limited functions, overseen by an appointed sous-préfet who reports to aPréfet appointed by the National government at Departmental level. Thus each Department contains both an elected government (a collectivité territoriale) and an administrative officer of the central government (a circonscription administrative déconcentrée). The powers of these two entities, and the administrative bodies which they control, are strictly separated under law.
Ferkessédougou Department contains the following sous-préfectures:
- DiawalaDiawalaDiawala is a city and commune in the Savanes region of Côte d'Ivoire.It is the birthplace of Guillaume Soro....
- Ferkessédougou
- KongKong, Côte d'IvoireKong is a town and commune in the Ferkessédougou Department, in the Savanes Region of northern Côte d'Ivoire. It was the capital of the Kong Empire .-Natural history:...
- KoumbalaKoumbalaKoumbala is a town and commune in the Ferkessédougou Department, in the Savanes Region of northern Côte d'Ivoire.-References:*This article was initially created from the French Wikipedia....
- NielléNielléNiellé is a town and commune in the Savanes Region of northern Côte d'Ivoire. It is near the borders with Mali and Burkina Faso.Niellé is in the sub-Saharan Sahel savanna biogeography region, of grasslands with trees, such as the Baobab—Adansonia digitata and Umbrella Thorn Acacia—Acacia tortilis...
- Ouangolodougou—Ouangolodougou DepartmentOuangolodougou DepartmentOuangolodougou Department is one of the departments of Côte d'Ivoire....
Regional center
The city is an important center of local development as the nearest large town on the north-south road to the main border posts for crossing into Burkina FasoBurkina Faso
Burkina Faso – also known by its short-form name Burkina – is a landlocked country in west Africa. It is surrounded by six countries: Mali to the north, Niger to the east, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the south, and Côte d'Ivoire to the southwest.Its size is with an estimated...
and Mali
Mali
Mali , officially the Republic of Mali , is a landlocked country in Western Africa. Mali borders Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west. Its size is just over 1,240,000 km² with...
. A major transport crossroads, it is home to a regional market
Market
A market is one of many varieties of systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby parties engage in exchange. While parties may exchange goods and services by barter, most markets rely on sellers offering their goods or services in exchange for money from buyers...
, schools, and a hospital
Hospital
A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment. Hospitals often, but not always, provide for inpatient care or longer-term patient stays....
.
Local economy
The economy of Ferkessédougou Department is overwhelmingly agricultural, with larger scale commercial farming based on huge cottonCotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....
and sugarcane
Sugarcane
Sugarcane refers to any of six to 37 species of tall perennial grasses of the genus Saccharum . Native to the warm temperate to tropical regions of South Asia, they have stout, jointed, fibrous stalks that are rich in sugar, and measure two to six metres tall...
plantations. The town is a center for the processing of these commodities, in particular for cattle feed, as it is a center for stockyards of herds of Zebu
Zebu
Zebu , sometimes known as humped cattle, indicus cattle, Cebu or Brahmin cattle are a type of domestic cattle originating in South Asia, particularly the Indian subcontinent. They are characterised by a fatty hump on their shoulders, drooping ears and a large dewlap...
cattle, driven from the north, and bound for markets further south. A burgeoning tourist industry is based upon Ferkessédougou Department's proximity to the large Comoé National Park
Comoé National Park
Comoé National Park is a national park in north eastern Côte d'Ivoire as well as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since its inscription in 1983. It is in the Ivoirian Zanzan Region between the towns of Kong to the west of both the park and the Comoé River, and Bouna to the east of the park, and just...
(to the east) and Mount Nimba Strict Nature Reserve
Mount Nimba Strict Nature Reserve
Mount Nimba Strict Nature Reserve is a protected area and UNESCO World Heritage Site in both Guinea and Côte d'Ivoire. A further extension of the reserve to include areas in Liberia has also been proposed....
(to the west).
Population and culture
Senari languages
The Senari languages form a central dialect cluster of the Senufo languages. They are spoken in northern Côte d'Ivoire, southern Mali and southwest Burkina Faso by more than a million Senufo. Four varieties can be distinguished, Cebaara, Nyarafolo, Senara and Syenara, all with several dialects...
and Kpalaga/Palaka dialect speakers). Sociocultural organization is based on the "Poro
Poro
The Poro, or Purrah or Purroh, is a secret society of Sierra Leone and Liberia.-Structure:Only males are admitted to its ranks, but two other affiliated and secret associations exist, the Yassi and the Bundu, the first of which is nominally reserved for females, but members of the Poro are admitted...
", an educational system through which every male adolescent graduates to adulthood.
History
The Department is situated in the heartland of the Senufo peopleSenufo
The Senufo are an ethnolinguistic group composed of diverse subgroups of Gur-speaking people living in an area spanning from southern Mali and the extreme western corner of Burkina Faso to Katiola in Côte d'Ivoire. One group, the Nafana, is found in north-western Ghana...
who migrated from the north at the time of the Mali Empire
Mali Empire
The Mali Empire or Mandingo Empire or Manden Kurufa was a West African empire of the Mandinka from c. 1230 to c. 1600. The empire was founded by Sundiata Keita and became renowned for the wealth of its rulers, especially Mansa Musa I...
. The Senufo followed traditional African faiths, while many of the Mandinka people
Mandinka people
The Mandinka, Malinke are one of the largest ethnic groups in West Africa with an estimated population of eleven million ....
were becoming fervent Muslims. The Senufo were soon followed by the Dioula or Jula
Jula
Jula refers to:* Dioula language spoken in western Africa* Jula people of western Africa* Jula AB, mail order and store*Jula, Afghanistan...
, a Mandinka merchant class prominent throughout West Africa
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
. The Dioula, as they are called in Côte d'Ivoire, reached the area and settled the nearby city of Kong
Kong, Côte d'Ivoire
Kong is a town and commune in the Ferkessédougou Department, in the Savanes Region of northern Côte d'Ivoire. It was the capital of the Kong Empire .-Natural history:...
in the 12th century. Despite being outnumbered by the Senufo, they prospered as traders and advisors in much of the region. In the 18th century, the Kong Empire
Kong Empire
The Kong Empire , also known as the Wattara Empire or Ouattara Empire for its founder, was a pre-colonial African Muslim state centered in north eastern Cote d'Ivoire that also encompassed much of present-day Burkina Faso.-Early Period:...
to the east became a major regional power, and dominated the Ferkessédougou area.
The town of Ferkessédougou was founded as late as the 19th century by Ferkessé, a Niarafola leader pushed to the west by the expansion of the Kong Empire. The name is a contraction of Ferkessés - dougou ("Village" in Bambara
Bambara language
Bambara, more correctly known as Bamanankan , its designation in the language itself , is a language spoken in Mali by as many as six million people...
).
At the end of the 19th century, the area fell under the control of first Samory Touré's Wassoulou Empire
Wassoulou Empire
The Wassoulou Empire, sometimes referred to as the Mandinka Empire, was a short-lived empire of West Africa built from the conquests of Dyula ruler Samori Ture and destroyed by the French colonial army....
and the French colonial empire
French colonial empire
The French colonial empire was the set of territories outside Europe that were under French rule primarily from the 17th century to the late 1960s. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the colonial empire of France was the second-largest in the world behind the British Empire. The French colonial empire...
. Placed under the Côte d'Ivoire Colony
History of Côte d'Ivoire
The date of the first human presence in Côte d'Ivoire has been difficult to determine because human remains have not been well-preserved in the country's humid climate...
of French West Africa
French West Africa
French West Africa was a federation of eight French colonial territories in Africa: Mauritania, Senegal, French Sudan , French Guinea , Côte d'Ivoire , Upper Volta , Dahomey and Niger...
in 1895, the completed section of the planned Abidjan-Niger Railway was constructed north and ended during the colonial period at Ferkessédougou town, lending it increased regional importance. Large scale cotton production was introduced by the French, which remains an important pillar of the local economy today. In the late 1970, Ferkessédougou was designated by the government one of their regional development hubs for industry processing agricultural goods. A 50,000 ton capacity sugar processing plant was built in this period.
Climate
On the southern edge of the SahelSahel
The Sahel is the ecoclimatic and biogeographic zone of transition between the Sahara desert in the North and the Sudanian Savannas in the south.It stretches across the North African continent between the Atlantic Ocean and the Red Sea....
—tropical Savanna belt
Sudanian Savanna
The Sudanian Savanna is a broad belt of tropical savanna that runs east and west across the African continent, from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Ethiopian Highlands in the east. The Sahel, a belt of drier grasslands and acacia savannas, lies to the north, between the Sudanian Savanna and...
, Ferkessédougou gets a mean annual rainfall of 1400 mm, making it drier than much of Côte d'Ivoire. It is 1037 ft-316 m in elevation.
Transport
Ferkessédougou is served by a station on the national railway systemTransport in Côte d'Ivoire
- Railways :As of 2004, the nation’s railway system consisted of a state-controlled 660 km section of a 1,146 km narrow gauge railroad that ran north from Abidjan through Bouaké and Ferkéssédougou to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.total:660 km...
.