three seasons
- warm and dry (November to March), hot and dry (March to May), hot
and wet (June to October)

Terrain: mostly flat to undulating plains; mountains in northwest

Elevation extremes: lowest point: Gulf of Guinea 0 m

highest point: Mont Nimba 1,752 m

Natural resources: petroleum, natural gas, diamonds, manganese, iron
ore, cobalt, bauxite, copper, hydropower

Land use: arable land: 8%

permanent crops: 4%

permanent pastures: 41%

forests and woodland: 22%

other: 25% (1993 est.)

Irrigated land: 680 sq km (1993 est.)

Natural hazards: coast has heavy surf and no natural harbors; during
the rainy season torrential flooding is possible

Environment - current issues: deforestation (most of the country's
forests - once the largest in West Africa - have been heavily
logged); water pollution from sewage and industrial and agricultural
effluents

Environment - international agreements: party to: Biodiversity,
Climate Change, Desertification, Endangered Species, Hazardous
Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone
Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Tropical Timber 83, Tropical
Timber 94, Wetlands

signed, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements

Cote d'Ivoire People

Population: 16,393,221

note: estimates for this country explicitly take into account the
effects of excess mortality due to AIDS; this can result in lower
life expectancy, higher infant mortality and death rates, lower
population and growth rates, and changes in the distribution of
population by age and sex than would otherwise be expected (July
2001 est.)

Age structure: 0-14 years: 46.21% (male 3,802,397; female 3,773,455)

15-64 years: 51.57% (male 4,343,518; female 4,110,805)

65 years and over: 2.22% (male 180,463; female 182,583) (2001 est.)

Population growth rate: 2.51% (2001 est.)

Birth rate: 40.38 births/1,000 population (2001 est.)

Death rate: 16.65 deaths/1,000 population (2001 est.)

Net migration rate: 1.4 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2001 est.)

note: after Liberia's civil war started in 1990, more than 350,000
refugees fled to Cote d'Ivoire; by the end of 1999 most Liberian
refugees were assumed to have returned

Sex ratio: at birth: 1.03 male(s)/female

under 15 years: 1.01 male(s)/female

15-64 years: 1.06 male(s)/female

65 years and over: 0.99 male(s)/female

total population: 1.03 male(s)/female (2001 est.)

Infant mortality rate