Once hailed as a model of stability, Ivory Coast has slipped into the kind of internal strife that has plagued many African countries.

An armed rebellion in 2002 split the nation in two. Since then, peace deals have alternated with renewed violence as the country has slowly edged its way towards a political resolution of the conflict.

For more than three decades after independence under the leadership of its first president, Felix Houphouet-Boigny, Ivory Coast was conspicuous for its religious and ethnic harmony and its well-developed economy.

All this ended when the late Robert Guei led a coup which toppled Felix Houphouet-Boigny's successor, Henri Bedie, in 1999.

Mr Bedie fled, but not before planting the seeds of ethnic discord by trying to stir up xenophobia against Muslim northerners, including his main rival, Alassane Ouattara.

This theme was also adopted by Mr Guei, who had Alassane Ouattara banned from the presidential election in 2000 because of his foreign parentage, and by the only serious contender allowed to run against Mr Guei, Laurent Gbagbo.

When Mr Gbagbo replaced Robert Guei after he was deposed in a popular uprising in 2000, violence replaced xenophobia. Scores of Mr Ouattara's supporters were killed after their leader called for new elections.

In September 2002 a troop mutiny escalated into a full-scale rebellion, voicing the ongoing discontent of northern Muslims who felt they were being discriminated against in Ivorian politics. Thousands were killed in the conflict.

Although the fighting has stopped, Ivory Coast is tense and divided. French and UN peacekeepers patrolled the buffer zone which separated the north, held by rebels known as the New Forces, and the government-controlled south.

President: Alassane Ouattara

Alassane Ouattara won the presidential election in November 2010 but the incumbent, Laurent Gbagbo, refused to give up power and had to be removed by force.
The poll was meant to draw a line under a 2002-03 civil war which left the country split in two, but it led to a stalemate lasting more than four months.

Mr Gbagbo, who had been in power for 10 years and several times delayed elections, claimed victory in the 2010 poll and held onto power, helped by his militia but isolated by the international community.

Mr Ouattara was unable to exercise any power, being confined to a hotel only a few kilometres away from the presidential palace, protected by UN peacekeeping troops.

Eventually his militia overran the country and - together with French troops - stormed the presidential palace and captured Mr Gbagbo in April 2011.

Radio is Ivory Coast's most popular medium. There is a tier of low-power, non-commercial community radio stations, including some run by the Catholic Church.

There are no private terrestrial TV stations, although pay-TV services are provided by Canal Satellite Horizons.

Rebels in the centre of the country use state radio and TV facilities in Bouake for their own broadcasts.

The Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders says Ivory Coast is "one of Africa's most dangerous countries for both local and foreign media".

In 2004, amid attacks on rebels in the north, the government used the media under its control, particularly state broadcaster Radiodiffusion Television Ivoirienne (RTI), as a powerful tool in the crisis. In 2006 members of the Young Patriots militia - loyal to President Gbagbo - invaded RTI headquarters.

In 2007 UN peacekeepers decried "the growing number of inflammatory articles in the press" as well as an increasing number of violent attacks against publications.

The peacekeepers launched their own radio station, Onuci FM, in 2005. Initially available in Abidjan, the station extended its reach to cover rebel-held towns in the north.

BBC World Service broadcasts on FM in Abidjan (94.3), Yamoussoukro (97.7) and Bouake (93.9).

The press

• Fraternité Matin - state-owned daily
• Notre Voie - daily, owned by ruling party
• Le Patriote - opposition daily
• Soir Info - private daily
• Le Nouveau Reveil - private daily
• Le Jour - private daily
• 24 Heures - private daily
• Le Front - private daily
• L'Inter - private daily

Television

• Radiodiffusion Television Ivoirienne (RTI) - state-run, operates La Premiere and TV2

Radio

• Radiodiffusion Television Ivoirienne (RTI) - state-run, operates La Chaine Nationale and Frequence 2
• Nostalgie - private, Abidjan FM station
• Africa No1 - relay of Gabon-based pan-African station, with some local programming
• Radio Espoir - Abidjan Catholic station
• Radio Paix Sanwi - Aboisso Catholic station
• Onuci FM - run by UN peacekeepers

News agency

• Agence Ivoirienne de Presse (AIP) - state-owned

A chronology of key events:

1842 - France imposes protectorate over coastal zone.
1893 - Ivory Coast made into a colony.

1904 - Ivory Coast becomes part of the French Federation of West Africa.

1944 - Felix Houphouet-Boigny, later to become Ivory Coast's first president, founds a union of African farmers, which develops into the inter-territorial African Democratic Rally and its Ivorian section, the Ivory Coast Democratic Party.

1958 - Ivory Coast becomes a republic within the French Community.

Independence

1960 - France grants independence under President Felix Houphouet-Boigny. He holds power until he dies in 1993.

1990 - Opposition parties legalised; Houphouet-Boigny wins Ivory Coast's first multiparty presidential election, beating Laurent Gbagbo of the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI).

1993 - Henri Konan Bedie becomes president following the death of Houphouet-Boigny.

1995 October - Bedie re-elected in a ballot that is boycotted by opposition parties in protest at restrictions imposed on their candidates.

1999 - July - Alassane Ouattara, a Muslim, leaves job at International Monetary Fund and returns to run for president in 2000; his plan to challenge Bedie splits country along ethnic and religious lines. Opponents say he is national of Burkina Faso, not Ivory Coast.

Coup

1999 - Bedie overthrown in military coup led by Robert Guei. Bedie flees to France.

2000 October - Guei proclaims himself president after announcing he has won presidential elections, but is forced to flee in the wake of a popular uprising against his perceived rigging of the poll.
2000 October - Laurent Gbagbo, believed to be the real winner in the presidential election, is proclaimed president. Opposition leader Alassane Ouattara, excluded from running in the poll, calls for a fresh election.

2000 October - Fighting erupts between Gbagbo's mainly southern Christian supporters and followers of Ouattara, who are mostly Muslims from the north.

2000 December - President Gbagbo's Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) emerges as the biggest single party in parliamentary elections.

2001 January - Attempted coup fails.

2001 March - President Gbagbo and opposition leader Ouattara meet for the first time since violence erupted between their supporters in October 2000 and agree to work towards reconciliation.

2001 - Reports of child slave ship off Africa's west coast spark allegations of child slavery in cocoa plantations, straining international relations. Government moves to tackle the issue.

2001 March - Calls for fresh presidential and legislative elections after Alassane Ouattara's party gains majority at local polls.
2001 June - Amnesty International criticises government's human rights record over alleged extra-judicial killings of 57 northerners during presidential election campaign in October 2000. Eight gendarmes accused of the killings are cleared in August.

2001 October - President Gbagbo sets up National Reconciliation Forum. General Guei refuses to attend in protest against the arrest of his close aide Captain Fabien Coulibaly.

2001 November - Opposition leader Alassane Ouattara returns, ending year-long exile in France and Gabon.

2002 August - Ouattara's RDR opposition party given four ministerial posts in new government.

Rebellion

2002 19 September - Mutiny in Abidjan by soldiers unhappy at being demobilised grows into full-scale rebellion, with Ivory Coast Patriotic Movement rebels seizing control of the north.

2002 October-December - Short-lived ceasefire in October gives way to further clashes and battle for key cocoa-industry town of Daloa. Previously unknown rebel groups seize towns in west.

2003 January - President Gbagbo accepts peace deal at talks in Paris. Deal proposes power-sharing government.

2003 March - Political parties, rebels agree on new government to include nine members from rebel ranks. "Consensus" prime minister, Seydou Diarra, is tasked with forming cabinet.

2003 May - Armed forces sign ceasefire with rebel groups.

2003 July - At a ceremony in the presidential palace, military chiefs and rebels declare that the war is over.

2003 August - Group of suspected mercenaries and their backers detained in France; said to have planned to assassinate President Gbagbo.

2003 December - 19 killed in armed attack on state TV building in Abidjan.

UN deploys

2004 March - Deadly clashes during crackdown on opposition rally against President Gbagbo in Abidjan.

First contingent of UN peacekeeping force deployed.

2004 May - UN report says March's opposition rally was used as pretext for planned operation by security forces. Report says more than 120 people were killed and alleges summary executions, torture.
2004 November - Ivorian air force attacks rebels; French forces enter the fray after nine of their soldiers are killed in an air strike. Violent anti-French protests ensue. UN imposes arms embargo.

2004 December - Parliament passes reforms envisaged under the 2003 peace accord, including abolishing the need for a president to have Ivorian parents.

2005 April - After talks in South Africa the government and rebels declare an "immediate and final end" to hostilities.

2005 June - Massacres in western town of Duekoue: President Gbagbo says more than 100 people were killed, but contradicts widely-held view that ethnic rifts lay behind violence.

Poll called off

2005 October - Planned elections are shelved as President Gbagbo invokes a law which he says allows him to stay in power. The UN extends his mandate for a further year.

2005 December - Economist Charles Konan Banny is nominated as prime minister by mediators. He is expected to disarm militias and rebels and to organise elections due in October 2006.

2006 January - Violent street demonstrations by supporters of President Gbagbo over what they see as UN interference in internal affairs.

2006 February - Main political rivals meet on Ivorian soil for the first time since the 2002 rebellion. They agree to meet again to iron out differences.

2006 June - Militias loyal to President Gbagbo miss disarmament deadlines.

2006 September - Political, rebel leaders say they've failed to make any breakthrough on the main issues standing in the way of elections - principally voter registration and disarmament.

Government resigns over a scandal involving the dumping of toxic waste in Abidjan. Fumes from the waste kill three people and make many more ill.

2006 November - UN Security Council resolution extends the transitional government's mandate for another year.

Power-sharing deal

2007 March - Government and New Forces rebels sign a power-sharing peace deal, mediated by Burkina Faso. Under the deal, New Forces leader Guillaume Soro is named as prime minister.
2007 April - President Gbagbo declares "the war is over" between his government and northern rebels, as the two sides move to dismantle the military buffer zone. Within days aid workers report an increase in violence.

2007 May - Militia begin to disarm.

2007 June - Prime Minister Soro survives a rocket attack on his plane.

2007 October - UN Security Council votes to maintain sanctions for another year.

2007 December - Rebel, government soldiers pull back from front-line positions as part of process to reunite country.

2008 January - UN renews mandate of 8,000 peacekeepers for six months to ensure polls are held by mid-year.

2008 January - Ten people are arrested and charged for plotting a coup in December 2007. Their alleged ring-leader, Sergeant Ibrahim Coulibaly, denies the charges.

2008 April - President Gbagbo cancels custom duties after a second day of violent protests against rising food costs.

Date of long-awaited presidential elections put back from June to the end of November.

Disarmament begins

2008 May - Former rebels who still control the northern half of the country begin disarming.

2008 July - Ivory Coast complains that a 2004 UN arms embargo is crippling efforts to cut illegal fishing.

The government increases diesel prices by 44% and petrol by 29% in response to rising world oil prices.

2008 August - The government halves ministerial salaries and those of state company managers to pay for a 10% fuel-price cut.

2008 October - The UN extends its arms embargo and sanctions on Ivory Coast's diamond trade for another year, promising to review the embargo once the country holds a presidential election.

2008 November - President Gbagbo and Prime Minister Soro agree to postpone presidential elections yet again, citing delays in voter registration and security concerns.

IMF write-off

2009 April - International Monetary Fund (IMF) agrees to write off $3bn (£2bn) of Ivory Coast's $12.8bn national debt.
2009 May - Former rebels hand over 10 northern zones to civilian administrators, as part of the process of returning the northern part of the country to state control.

2009 October - UN extends ban on Ivory Coast's diamond trade for another year.

2010 October 31 - First round of presidential election. Mr Gbagbo comes first with 38%, not enough to win outright. Former premier Alassane Ouattara is second with 32%.

2010 November - Run-off ballot between Mr Gbagbo and Mr Ouattara.

Post-election standoff

2010 2 December - Election commission says Mr Ouattara wins with 54.1% of the vote compared with 45.9 percent for Mr Gbagbo.

2010 3 December - Constitutional Council, run by a Gbagbo ally, rejects results as rigged. Mr Gbagbo is declared winner.

United Nations refuses to accept Mr Gbagbo's victory, endorsing Mr Ouattara as winner instead. African Union, West African ECOWAS bloc, US, EU and others soon follow suit.

2010 16 December - Pro-Gbagbo and pro-Ouattara forces wage gun battles in Abidjan, and exchange fire in central town of Tiebissou. At least 20 people are killed as security forces clash with anti-Gbagbo protesters.

2010 18 December - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon rejects a demand by Mr Gbagbo for UN and French forces to leave.

2010 24 December - West African ECOWAS bloc threatens military action if Mr Gbagbo refuses to cede power to Mr Ouattara.
 

2011 February - UN warns that worsening violence between rival camps has brought Ivory Coast close to civil war.

2011 March - UN refugee agency says up to one million people may have fled their homes because of violence following the disputed presidential election.

Alassane Ouattara's forces overrun much of the country and surround Mr Gbagbo and his supporters in the presidential compound in the main city of Abidjan.

2011 April - Alassane Ouattara's forces capture Laurent Gbagbo.

2011 May - Alassane Ouattara is inaugurated as president.

2011 June - The authorities announce a national commission to investigate crimes committed during the months of violence between supporters of Alassane Ouattara and Laurent Gbagbo.