Geography of Ivory Coast southern region, especially the southwest, is covered with dense tropical moist forest. The Eastern Guinean forests extend from the Sassandra River across the south-central and southeast portion of Ivory Coast and east into Ghana, while the Western Guinean lowland forests extend west from the Sassandra River into Liberia and southeastern Guinea. The mountains of Dix-Huit Montagnes region, in the west of the country near the border with Guinea and Liberia, are home to the Guinean montane forests. The Guinean forest-savanna mosaic belt extends across the middle of the country from east to west, and is the transition zone between the
Sub-Saharan Africa West and Central Africa), or sometimes extending from the coast of West Africa to Western Sudan. Its equivalent in Southeast Africa was "Zanj" ("Country of the Blacks"), which was situated in the vicinity of the Great Lakes region. The geographers drew an explicit ethnographic distinction between the Sudan region and its analogue Zanj, from the area to their extreme east on the Red Sea coast in the Horn of Africa. In modern-day Ethiopia and Eritrea was "Al-Habash" or Abyssinia, which was inhabited by the "Habash" or Abyssinians, who were the forebears of the Habesha. In northern Somalia was "Barbara" or