Bondoukou

Bondoukou (var. Bonduku, Bontuku) is a city in north-eastern Ivory Coast, 420 km northeast of Abidjan. It is the seat of both Zanzan District and Gontougo Region. It is also a commune and the seat of and a sub-prefecture of Bondoukou Department.

Bondoukou is near the border with Ghana. Just across the border is the Ghanaian town of Sampa. The city lies at the junction of the main A1 highway with roads to Sorobango to the north and Ghana to the east.

History

Originally a Dyula trading center, Bondoukou was conquered by the Abron, an Akan people, in the early seventeenth century; it soon became the economic hub of the Gyaaman kingdom. On 13 November 1888, the French officer Treich-Laplène signed a Protectorate treaty with the Abron king of Bondoukou, but the city fell to Samori between September 1895 and July 1897, and unlike nearby centers, he did not destroy the old city, but deposed the Abron in favour of the Muslim Dyula. The French incorporated the town into French West Africa in 1899. At the end of the colonial period, the town had shrunk to large village, eclipsed by the nearby administrative center of Loti. In 1964 it was made administrative center for its region, and as since regained its status as the largest town, and is the seat of the Prefect governing Bouna, Tanda, and Bondoukou Departments. In 1980, the town came to prominence as the home of the first secondary school strikes by students opposed to the PDCI-RDA government. On the dividing line between government and rebel zones of control during the Ivorian Civil War, Bondoukou became the main north-eastern base of the United Nations Operation in Côte d'Ivoire (ONUCI).