Culture of Ivory Coast Culture of Ivory Coast The diverse culture of Ivory Coast, a coastal West African country bordered by Ghana, Liberia, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Guinea, is exemplified by a multitude of ethnic groups, events, festivals, music, and art. More than sixty indigenous ethnic groups are often cited, although this number may be reduced to seven clusters of ethnic groups, by classifying small units together on the basis of their cultural and historical characteristics, which differ somewhat from one to the next. These may be further reduced to four major cultural regions – the East Atlantic (primarily Akan), West Atlantic (primarily Kru),
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