Bouaké

Overview

Bouaké, city, central Côte d'Ivoire, capital of Bouaké Department. Located on a plateau, the city is a road hub on the Abidjan-Niger Railroad and is a market center for a region in which cotton, coffee, cacao, sisal, tobacco, rice, yams, and palm products are produced. It has sisal-cordage and cotton mills. Gold and manganese deposits are in the vicinity. Bouaké is the site of a school of forestry; government livestock, veterinary, and meteorological stations; and a cotton-textile research institute. Once an important slave market, Bouaké was established as a French military post in the late 1890s. It has been an administrative center since 1914. Population (1988) 329,850

History