Heritage with Related Tags
Mount Nimba Strict Nature Reserve
Mount Nimba, located on the border of Guinea, Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire, rises high above the surrounding savannah. The grassy mountain pastures on its slopes are covered with dense forests at the foot. The mountain is particularly rich in flora and fauna, including endemic species such as viviparous toads and chimpanzees that use stones as tools.
Ruins of Loropéni
The 11,130 square meter site is the first inscribed in the country and its imposing stone walls are the best preserved of the ten fortresses in the Lobi region, part of a group of 100 stone wall enclosures that bear witness to the power of the trans-Saharan gold trade. Located near the borders of Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana and Togo, recent studies suggest it is at least 1,000 years old. The settlement was inhabited by the Lohron or Koulango people, who controlled gold mining and processing in the region between the 14th and 17th centuries when it reached its peak. There are many mysteries surrounding the site, much of which has yet to be excavated. The settlement appears to have been abandoned at certain times in its long history. The site, which was ultimately abandoned in the early 19th century, is expected to provide more information.
Caliphate City of Medina Azahara
The Caliphate city of Medina Azahara is an archaeological site that was built by the Umayyads in the middle of the 10th century AD as the capital of the Caliphate of Cordoba. After a few years of prosperity, the city was razed to the ground during the civil war of 1821. The Caliphate fell in 1009-1010. The remains of the city were forgotten for nearly 1,000 years until they were rediscovered in the early 20th century. This complete urban complex includes infrastructure such as roads, bridges, water systems, buildings, decorative elements, and everyday objects. It provides an insight into the now-vanished Islamic civilization of Andalusia, which was at its peak.
Sudanese style mosques in northern Côte d’Ivoire
The eight small adobe mosques at Tenggerira, Kuto, Sorobongo, Samatijira, Mbengue, Kong and Kawara feature prominent wooden structures, vertical buttresses topped with pottery or ostrich eggs, and tapering minarets. They represent an architectural style thought to have originated in the town of Djenné around the 14th century, when it was part of the Mali Empire, which prospered on the gold and salt trade across the Sahara to North Africa. From the 16th century onwards in particular, the style spread southward from the desert regions to the Sudanese savannah, where buildings became shorter and buttresses more substantial due to a wetter climate. The mosques are the best preserved of 20 such structures still in existence in Côte d’Ivoire, which at the beginning of the last century had hundreds of them. The mosques have a distinctive Sudanese style, endemic to the West African savannah region, and developed between the 17th and 19th centuries, when merchants and scholars expanded southwards from the Mali Empire, extending trans-Saharan commercial routes into forested areas. They are important testaments to the trans-Saharan trade that facilitated the expansion of Islam and Islamic culture, and reflect a fusion of Islamic and local architectural forms that continues to this day.
Historic City of Toledo
Toledo has a history of more than 2,000 years, having been a Roman municipality, the capital of the Visigothic Kingdom, a fortress of the Emirate of Cordoba, an outpost of the Christian Kingdom in its battles with the Moors, and in the 16th century a temporary supreme power center under Charles V. Its masterpieces are the product of heterogeneous civilizations, with the presence of the three major religions of the time - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - as the main factor.