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Updates: 

"Geopolitical Entities, Names, and Codes, Edition 2" (GENC), a U.S. standard that's supposed to correspond to ISO 3166-2, was issued on 2014-03-31. It gives codes for the new districts and autonomous districts created in 2011. An update to ISO 3166-2, effective 2015-11-27, abolishes the two-digit codes for the former regions, and makes the district codes shown in the table below official.

Update 13 to Geopolitical Entities and Codes (formerly FIPS 10-4) is dated 2013-09-30. It reflects the change from regions to districts.

ISO 3166-2 Newsletter I-8, published on 2007-04-17, has ISO codes for the regions that were created in 2000. They are shown in the table below.

FIPS Publication Change Notice No. 10, affecting FIPS PUB 10-4, was issued on 2006-03-23. It assigns new FIPS codes to the regions as of 2000, superseding the department codes formerly in effect.

There is disagreement over the correct gentilic for inhabitants of Côte d'Ivoire. The CIA World Factbook specifies "Ivoirian" under the Nationality heading, but goes ahead and uses "Ivorian" everywhere else. Google returns almost seven times as many hits for Ivorian as Ivoirian. In French, Ivoirien is correct. Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary evades the issue by saying "Ivory Coaster".

According to the Presidency of Côte d'Ivoire (source [1]), after 2000-04-26 there were 18 regions and 57 departments. (This is probably an error. There should be 58 departments. Their list omits Soubré, which is given in many other sources.) Their list includes Fromager and Moyen-Cavally regions. The decree forming these regions, dated 2000-04-20, is cited in source [3]. Source [2] confirms those new regions, and shows that Bafing region was split from Worodougou. The decree which created Bafing is cited in source [4].

International standard ISO 3166-2 was published on December 15, 1998. It superseded ISO/DIS 3166-2 (draft international standard). For Côte d'Ivoire, the draft standard showed ten regions, further subdivided into 50 departments. The final standard showed sixteen regions (with no obvious relation to the former ten), and no departments.

Country overview: 

Short name	COTE D'IVOIRE
ISO code	CI
FIPS code	IV
Language	French (fr)
Time zone	+0
Capital	Abidjan, Yamoussoukro

 

Ivory Coast, as it was called by English speakers until recently, was a French colony in 1900. In 1904, it became a territory, as part of French West Africa. On 1932-09-06, Upper Volta (Haute Volta) was partitioned among Ivory Coast, French Sudan, and Niger, but this change was nullified on 1947-09-04. Ivory Coast became independent on 1960-08-07.

Other names of country: 

Côte d'Ivoire requested in 1986 that all languages use the French form of its name.

1. Danish: Elfenbenskysten, republikken Elfenbenskysten (formal)
2. Dutch: Ivoorkust, Republiek Ivoorkust (formal)
3. English: Republic of the Ivory Coast (formal), Ivory Coast (obsolete)
4. Finnish: Norsunluurannikko
5. French: Côte f d'Ivoire m, République f de la Côte d'Ivoire (formal)
6. German: Elfenbeinküste f, Côte d'Ivoire
7. Icelandic: Fílabeinsströndin
8. Italian: Costa f d'Avorio m, Côte d'Ivoire
9. Norwegian: Elfenbenskysten, Republikken Elfenbenskysten (formal) (Bokmål), Elfenbeinskysten, Republikken Elfenbeinskysten (formal) (Nynorsk)
10. Portuguese: Costa do Marfim, República f da Costa f do Marfim m (formal)
11. Russian: БСК (abbr), Берег Слоновой Кости, Республика Кот-д’Ивуар (formal)
12. Spanish: Costa f de Marfil m, República f de la Côte f d'Ivoire (formal)
13. Swedish: Elfenbenskusten
14. Turkish: Fildişi Kıyısı (variant), Fildişi Sahili Cumhuriyeti (formal)

Origin of name: 

French for Ivory Coast. Trade in ivory was conducted there.

Primary subdivisions: 

Côte d'Ivoire is divided into twelve districts and two autonomous districts.

District	HASC	ISO	FIPS	GENC	Population	Area(km.²)	Area(mi.²)	Capital
Abidjan	CI.AB	AB	IV93	CI-20	4,707,404			Abidjan
Bas-Sassandra	CI.BA	BS	IV76	CI-09	2,280,548			San Pedro
Comoé	CI.CM	CM	IV94	CI-21	1,203,052	14,173	5,472	Abengourou
Denguélé	CI.DE	DN	IV77	CI-10	289,779	20,997	8,107	Odienné
Gôh-Djiboua	CI.GD	GD	IV95	CI-22	1,605,286			Gagnoa
Lacs	CI.LA	LC	IV81	CI-07	1,258,604			Dimbokro
Lagunes	CI.LN	LG	IV82	CI-01	1,478,047			Dabou
Montagnes	CI.MN	MG	IV78	CI-06	2,371,920	31,050	10,989	Man
Sassandra-Marahoué	CI.SM	SM	IV96	CI-23	2,293,304	23,940	9,243	Daloa
Savanes	CI.SV	SV	IV87	CI-03	1,607,497	40,210	15,525	Korhogo
Vallée du Bandama	CI.VB	VB	IV90	CI-04	1,440,826	28,518	11,011	Bouaké
Woroba	CI.WB	WR	IV97	CI-24	845,139	31,088	12,003	Séguéla
Yamoussoukro	CI.YM	YM	IV98	CI-25	355,573			Yamoussoukro
Zanzan	CI.ZA	ZZ	IV92	CI-08	934,352	38,251	14,769	Bondoukou
Total					22,671,331
District: Abidjan and Yamoussoukro are autonomous districts. HASC: Hierarchical administrative subdivision codes. ISO: Codes from ISO 3166-2 (provisional). FIPS: Codes from FIPS PUB 10-4. GENC: Codes from GENC. Population: 2014-05-15 census (source [14]). Area: Computed from the former regions wherever possible.

Further subdivisions:

See the Regions of Côte d'Ivoire page.

The districts are subdivided into regions, which are subdivided into departments, and further into sous-préfectures (sub-prefectures).

Before the 2011 reorganization, Côte d'Ivoire was divided into regions, which were subdivided into departments and then into sub-prefectures. The number of sub-prefectures was 108 in 1967, 127 in 1972, 162 in 1977, 183 in 1993, 258 in 2004, and 393 in 2008. When departments are split, the division almost always preserves sub-prefectures intact.

Territorial extent: 

The UN LOCODE page  for Côte d'Ivoire lists locations in the country, some of them with their latitudes and longitudes, some with their ISO 3166-2 codes for their subdivisions. This information can be put together to approximate the territorial extent of subdivisions.

Origins of names: 

Several of the regions are named after rivers of Côte d'Ivoire: the Bafing, Bandama, Cavally, Comoé, Marahoué, and Sassandra. Translations below are from French.

1. Abidjan: Supposedly, when the first colonists asked native women the name of the place, the women misunderstood and replied "T'chan m'bi djan": "I've just been cutting leaves".
2. Bas: = Lower
3. Bouaké: Named for Gbouéké, native king, founder of the city.
4. Centre: = Center
5. Dix-Huit Montagnes: = Eighteen Mountains
6. Est: = East
7. Fromager: = Kapok Tree (The basic meaning of "fromager" is "cheesemaker". One Web site explains that cheese boxes were made from the kapok tree; another, that its ripe seedpod smelled like cheese.)
8. Haut: = Upper
9. Lacs: = Lakes
10. Lagunes: = Lagoons
11. Moyen: = Middle
12. Nord: = North
13. Ouest: = West
14. Savanes: = Savannas
15. Sud: = South
16. Vallée du Bandama: = Bandama Valley

Change history: 

1. 1960: At independence, Côte d'Ivoire was divided into 19 cercles, and further into 49 subdivisions de cercle.
2. 1961-01-03: Côte d'Ivoire reorganized into four départements: Centre, Nord, Sud-Est, and Sud-Ouest. These were subdivided into 102 sous-préfectures.
3. 1963-03: Est department created; name of Sud-Est department changed to Sud; name of Sud-Ouest department changed to Ouest.
4. 1963-10: Centre-Ouest department split from Ouest.
5. 1969-06-16: A new subdivision into 24 departments was published. The government had insufficient resources to establish the required administrative machinery immediately, so the departments were implemented one by one, finishing in 1974-09. This list shows the regions, their capitals, population estimates, and the departments that were formed from each region. The department capitals had the same names as their departments. There were also two communes de plein exercise (autonomous municipalities), Abidjan and Bouaké. I consider them to be included in their departments, but some may disagree. Population data come from source [5], which calls the regions "départements", and identifies the 109 sub-prefectures into which they were subdivided.

Region	Capital	Population	Departments
Centre	Bouaké	1,132,000	Bouaflé, Bouaké, Dimbokro, Katiola
Centre Ouest	Daloa	365,000	Daloa, Gagnoa, part of Sassandra
Est	Abengourou	286,000	Abengourou, Bondoukou
Nord	Korhogo	758,000	Boundiali, Ferkessédougou, Korhogo, Odienné, Séguéla, Touba
Ouest	Man	494,000	Biankouma, Danané, Guiglo, Man
Sud	Abidjan	1,075,000	Abidjan, Aboisso, Adzopé, Agboville, Divo, part of Sassandra
6 regions		4,110,000

1. 1975: The census reported twenty-six departments and two communes, as follows. By comparison with the previous table, two communes were added, as were Bonoua and Dabakala departments.

Division	Typ	Population
Abengourou	d	175,891
Abidjan	c	685,828
Abidjan	d	702,492
Aboisso	d	146,876
Adzopé	d	159,502
Agboville	d	140,250
Biankouma	d	74,408
Bondoukou	d	293,838
Bonoua	d	77,232
Bouaflé	d	265,875
Bouaké	c	173,248
Bouaké	d	632,111
Boundiali	d	132,160
Dabakala	d	55,356
Daloa	d	367,414
Danané	d	169,589
Dimbokro	d	478,054
Divo	d	275,171
Ferkéssédougou	d	90,901
Gagnoa	d	256,006
Guiglo	d	135,252
Katiola	d	75,909
Korhogo	d	276,846
Man	d	277,648
Odiénné	d	124,196
Sassandra	d	195,620
Séguéla	d	157,644
Touba	d	77,696
28 divisions		6,673,013
Typ: c = commune, d = department. Population: 1975-04-30 census (provisional).

1. 1983-03-21: President Félix Houphouët-Boigny announced plans to move the national capital from Abidjan to Yamoussoukro. On that date, Yamoussoukro became the political capital, while Abidjan was and is still the administrative capital.
2. 1986-01-01: Côte d'Ivoire declared that the only correct form of its name in any language was the French one. This wish has been honored, for the most part, by those who are aware of it.
3. ~1987: I have found very few references to the ten regions listed below. I found population figures for these regions attributed to the 1988-03-01 census, so we can guess that the regions were created before that date. Most reference works during this period list the departments rather than the regions, suggesting that the regions were less significant. Draft international standard ISO/DIS 3166-2, published in 1996, listed the regions and the departments as separate levels. For the geographical extent of these regions, see the "Old" column in the 2008 table on the Regions of Côte d'Ivoire page.

Region	ISO	Lic	Population	Capital
Centre	01	07	815,664	Yamoussoukro
Centre-Est	02	05	300,407	Abengourou
Centre-Nord	03	04	915,269	Bouaké
Centre-Ouest	04	02	1,542,945	Daloa
Nord	05	03	745,816	Korhoga
Nord-Est	06	08	514,134	Bondoukou
Nord-Ouest	07	10	522,247	Odienné
Ouest	08	06	968,267	Man
Sud	09	01	3,843,249	Abidjan
Sud-Ouest	10	09	647,696	San-Pedro
10 regions			10,815,694
ISO: Codes from ISO/DIS 3166-2. These codes should not be used, as they conflict with the region codes issued in the 1998 update. Lic: License plate suffix. Source: Where's That Vehicle Come From?  Population: 1988-03-01 census.

1. 1997-01-15: Côte d'Ivoire reorganized from ten regions into sixteen regions.
2. 2000-04-20: Fromager region formed from parts of Haut-Sassandra region (Gagnoa department) and Marahoué region (Oumé department); Moyen-Cavally formed by taking Duékoué, Guiglo, and Toulépleu departments from Dix-Huit Montagnes. The former HASC codes for these regions were CI.DM for Dix-Huit Montagnes, CI.HS for Haut-Sassandra, and CI.MA for Marahoué.
3. 2000-07-12: Bafing region formed by taking Touba department from Worodougou (former HASC code CI.WO). At that point, Côte d'Ivoire was divided into these regions:

Region	HASC	ISO	FIPS	Population	Area(km.²)	Area(mi.²)	Capital
Agnéby	CI.AG	16	IV74	525,211	9,234	3,565	Agboville
Bafing	CI.BF	17	IV75	139,251	8,922	3,445	Touba
Bas-Sassandra	CI.BS	09	IV76	1,395,251	26,440	10,209	San-Pédro
Denguélé	CI.DE	10	IV77	222,446	20,997	8,107	Odienné
Dix-Huit Montagnes	CI.DH	06	IV78	936,510	16,782	6,480	Man
Fromager	CI.FR	18	IV79	542,992	6,903	2,665	Gagnoa
Haut-Sassandra	CI.HT	02	IV80	1,071,977	15,242	5,885	Daloa
Lacs	CI.LC	07	IV81	476,235	8,875	3,427	Yamoussoukro
Lagunes	CI.LG	01	IV82	3,733,413	13,323	5,144	Abidjan
Marahoué	CI.MR	12	IV83	554,807	8,698	3,358	Bouaflé
Moyen-Cavally	CI.MV	19	IV84	508,733	14,268	5,509	Guiglo
Moyen-Comoé	CI.MC	05	IV85	394,761	6,921	2,672	Abengourou
N'zi-Comoé	CI.NC	11	IV86	633,927	19,242	7,429	Dimbokro
Savanes	CI.SV	03	IV87	929,673	40,210	15,525	Korhogo
Sud-Bandama	CI.SB	15	IV88	682,021	10,677	4,122	Divo
Sud-Comoé	CI.SC	13	IV89	459,487	7,252	2,800	Aboisso
Vallée du Bandama	CI.VB	04	IV90	1,080,509	28,518	11,011	Bouaké
Worodougou	CI.WR	14	IV91	378,463	22,166	8,558	Séguéla
Zanzan	CI.ZA	08	IV92	701,005	38,251	14,769	Bondoukou
19 regions				15,366,672	322,921	124,680
HASC: Hierarchical administrative subdivision codes. ISO: Codes from ISO standard 3166-2, issued December 15, 1998. For full identification in a global context, prefix "CI-" to the code (ex: CI-08 represents Zanzan). FIPS: Codes from FIPS PUB 10-4. Population: 1998-11-21 census (source [6])

1. 2011-09-28: Côte d'Ivoire reorganized from nineteen regions into fourteen districts. Sources disagree about the details of the resulting divisions in regard to lower-level divisions, but they agree on the composition of the new districts. Abidjan and Yamoussoukro were split from their regions (Lagunes and Lacs, respectively) to form autonomous districts. The northern regions of Denguélé, Savanes, Vallée du Bandama, and Zanzan became districts with no change in territory. The old Agnéby and Lagunes regions, excluding Abidjan, merged to form Lagunes district. Bafing and Worodougou regions merged to form Woroba district. The department of Fresco was transferred from Sud-Bandama to Bas-Sassandra region to form Bas-Sassandra district; the remainder of Sud-Bandama region merged with Fromager to form Gôh-Djiboua district. Dix-Huit Montagnes and Moyen-Cavally regions merged to form Montagnes district. Haut-Sassandra and Marahoué regions merged to form Sassandra-Marahoué district. N'zi-Comoé and Lacs regions, excluding Yamoussoukro, merged to form Lacs district. Moyen-Comoé and Sud-Comoé regions merged to form Comoé district. The new divisions are shown in the main table above.

Other names of subdivisions: 

1. Abidjan: Abiyan (Spanish)
2. Agnéby: Agnébi (variant)
3. Bas-Sassandra: Cavally inférieur (variant)
4. Haut-Sassandra: Sassandra supérieur (variant)
5. Moyen-Comoé: Comoé central (variant)

Sources: 

1. [1] http://www.pr.ci/cote_d_ivoire/ci/regions/, on the website of the Presidency of Côte d'Ivoire, now a dead link (retrieved 2002-04-30).
2. [2] http://www.isa-africa.com/ci/mairies.htm was a list of mayors of communes, grouped by department and region. It was found on the Internet & Services - Africa website. This link is also dead (retrieved 2002-04-30).
3. [3] http://www.pr.ci/gouvernement/conseil/cm2000/cm20000420.html, a communiqué of the Council of Ministers dated 2000-04-20, also dead (retrieved about 2002-06).
4. [4] http://www.pr.ci/gouvernement/conseil/cm2000/cm20000712.html, a communiqué of the Council of Ministers dated 2000-07-12, also dead (retrieved about 2002-06).
5. [5] "La Population de la Côte d'Ivoire en 1965", a report of Institut de recherche pour le développement, Bondy, France: Table V, fourth column, contains estimates of the 1965 de facto population by region. Retrieved from http://www.bondy.ird.fr/pleins_textes/pleins_textes_4/sci_hum/19802.pdf about 2002-04.
6. [6] The legend of this map of the Administrative Structure of Côte d'Ivoire  has populations (1998 and 2006), areas, and capitals of the regions. However, the ratio of the 2006 population to the 1998 population is 1.27924 in every case. Obviously they just estimated the 2006 population and scaled all of the region populations by the right factor to produce the desired result. The map credits INS (Institut National de la Statistique) and is dated April 2007. The 1998 populations should be the most reliable, because that was the year of Côte d'Ivoire's last census.
7. [7] People's Daily Online , French edition (Chinese news site, dated 2011-09-29, retrieved 2011-12-03).
8. [8] Official Portal of the Côte d'Ivoire Goverment  (dated 2011-10-11, retrieved 2011-12-03).
9. [9] Council of Ministers  report (dated 2011-09-28, retrieved 2011-12-03).
10. [10] District of Yamoussoukro  website (retrieved 2011-12-03).
11. [11] Liste des nominations des préfets de région et de département  (retrieved 2013-05-08).
12. [12] Élection Législatives 2011  (retrieved 2013-05-08).
13. [13] 1979 Demographic Yearbook , 31st Ed. Statistical Office, United Nations, New York, 1980 (retrieved 2011-12-28).
14. [14] Résultats Globaux  Global results of the 2014 General Census of Population and Housing (retrieved 2015-09-23).