An armed rebellion in 2002 split the nation in two, and the main players in the conflict have so far failed to find a political solution, or to implement the terms of a peace accord.

OVERVIEW

For more than three decades after independence under the leadership of its first president, Felix Houphouet-Boigny, Ivory Coast was conspicuous for its religious and ethnic harmony. Its economy was among the most developed on the continent.

All this ended when the late Robert Guei led a coup which toppled Felix Houphouet-Boigny's successor, Henri Bedie, in 1999.

Mr Bedie fled, but not before planting the seeds of ethnic discord by trying to stir up xenophobia against Muslim northerners, including his main rival, Alassane Ouattara.

AT A GLANCE Civil war in 2002 left the country divided between the rebel-held north and army-controlled south Terms of a 2003 peace deal have yet to be fully implemented UN peacekeepers have joined French troops on the ground Elections are planned for October 2005

This theme was also adopted by Mr Guei, who had Alassane Ouattara banned from the presidential election in 2000 because of his foreign parentage, and by the only serious contender allowed to run against Mr Guei, Laurent Gbagbo.

When Mr Gbagbo replaced Robert Guei after he was deposed in a popular uprising in 2000, violence replaced xenophobia. Scores of Mr Ouattara's supporters were killed after their leader called for new elections.

In September 2002 a troop mutiny escalated into a full-scale rebellion, voicing the ongoing discontent of northern Muslims. Thousands were killed in the conflict. Although the fighting has stopped, Ivory Coast remains divided.

Peacekeepers patrol the buffer zone which separates the rebel-held north and the government-controlled south. Political efforts to reunite the nation have so far failed.

FACTS

• Population: 17.1 million (UN, 2005)
• Capital: Yamoussoukro
• Area: 322,462 sq km (124,503 sq miles)
• Major languages: French, indigenous languages
• Major religions: Islam, Christianity, indigenous beliefs
• Life expectancy: 45 years (men), 47 years (women) (UN)
• Monetary unit: 1 CFA (Communaute Financiere Africaine) franc = 100 centimes
• Main exports: Cocoa, coffee, tropical woods, petroleum, cotton, bananas, pineapples, palm oil, fish
• GNI per capita: US $660 (World Bank, 2005)
• Internet domain: .ci
• International dialling code: +225

LEADERS

President: Laurent Gbagbo

Amid an aprising against his predecessor, Laurent Gbagbo proclaimed himself president in October 2000, at the age of 55.

President Laurent Gbagbo spent 30 years in opposition

The president derives much of his support from the mostly-Christian south and west of the country.

Under the terms of a peace deal brokered in 2003 his government is required to disarm militias and to pass political and legal reforms. In return, rebels in the north are to lay down their weapons.

But it's unclear whether the process will have progressed enough for nationwide elections to be held in October 2005, when Mr Gbagbo's five-year term is set to end.

A historian by profession, Laurent Gbagbo is a former trade union activist who, since the 1980s, has taken a strongly nationalist stance, espousing the concept of pure Ivorian parentage.

He spent two years in prison in the early 1970s for "subversive" teaching and eight years in exile in France in the 1980s, before returning in 1988 to campaign for multi-party democracy.