Autonomous Lagoon District

The Lagunes Autonomous District is located in the south of the country, between the Gulf of Guinea and the Abidjan Autonomous District to the south, the Bas-Sassandra and Gôh-Djiboua Districts to the west, the Lakes District to the north and the Comoé District to the east. Before the administrative redistribution, there was a Lagunes region. Most of the departments of the Lagunes region are now part of the District des Lagunes, to which part of the former Agnéby region has been added, while the department of Abidjan has become an autonomous district. Its capital is the town of Dabou. The District’s indigenous ethnic groups are the lagoon peoples (Ebriés, Atiés, Alladians, Ahizis, Avikams, Adioukrous, Abidjis, Krobous, Mbatos) and the Abès. As its name suggests, this District takes its name from the lagoons that stretch along its coastline, notably the Ébrié lagoon and the Tagba lagoon (Grand-Lahou lagoon).

Dabou, the capital of the Grands Ponts region, is also the capital of the Lagunes Autonomous District. On the edge of the lagoon, an old town huddles around the Faidherbe fort, the only fortified structure in the country, with a small fish market on the hillside, a large market, shops and, on its heights, a huge mosque. THREE SMALL CANNONS…

Separated by the Ébrié lagoon from the long sandy stretch of ocean-side fishing villages, Dabou has long been the most prosperous trading post in the south-east. Very early on, Verdier’s lagoon tankers delivered European products landed in Assinie and Bassam to Dabou, to be sold in the hinterland by itinerant traders.

Agboville, the capital of the Agnéby-Tiassa Region, is a major town in the District of the Lagunes. Halfway between the two main roads leading north and north-east, Agboville, formerly Agnéby, capital of the Agnéby-Tiassa agricultural region, is a historic town where Houphouët-Boigny’s African Agricultural Union (SAA), the forerunner of the Rassemblement démocratique africain (RDA), was founded in 1944.

The town was one of the few created by the settlers after they evacuated the village of Ery Makouguié because of the malaria epidemic. It soon became the main military post in Abbey Township. In 1916, it became the administrative centre of the cercle de l’Agnéby, which included the subdivisions of Agboville and Adzopé.

Agboville is Côte d’Ivoire’s leading banana producer. In the past, they alternated with large plantations of coffee and cocoa trees, or food crops such as manioc, maize, rice and market garden produce. The large plantations that made the “cocoa loop” so rich have more or less disappeared in favour of flowers and oil palms. As a producer of rattan, bamboo and lianas, the region was once an ideal place for basket-making.