Côte d'Ivoire's first national census in 1975 counted 6.7 million inhabitants, allowing 1987 estimates of 10.6 million. The 1987 annual growth rate was 4.1 %. Regional variations were marked, with annual growth of only 1 % in the far north, but throughout the nation, population growth rates, which included high net immigration rates, were increasing. In the late 1980s, population projections for the year 2000 exceeded 20 million people.

Nation-wide, life expectancy rose from thirty-nine to fiftyone years between 1960 and 1988, and during the same time, the average annual birth rate also increased steadily to 45.9 per 1,000 population. Fertility rates were about average for West Africa at 6.6 births per adult female. Fertility rates were lowest in Abidjan and highest in rural areas, where infant mortality also remained comparatively high. Mortality rates overall declined sharply after 1960, when onethird of all infants died before the age of five. Infant mortality in the first year of life declined to 110 deaths per 1,000 births in the late 1980s. The crude death rate was just over 14 per 1,000 population.

There are more than 60 tribes, traditionally independent from each other, though larger groups among them may be recognized on the basis of cultural unity. Each one of these groups has tribal affiliations with larger groups living outside the borders of the republic. Thus the Baule, as well as other peoples living east of the Bandama River, are affiliated with the Akan group of Ghana. The lagoon fishermen farther south also have tribal brothers belonging to the same Akan group. The forest people west of the Bandama belong to the same group as the Kru boatmen of Liberia. In the interior, the Kru group is subseparated into tribes tiny in number but scattered over large areas of the forest and kept together by secret societies. The population of Côte d’Ivoire is various, comprising more than 60 ethnic groups. The principal groups include the Akan-speaking peoples of the southeast, the Kru of the southwest, the Voltaic groups of the northeast, and the Mandinka known as Mandingo or Malinke and southern Mande peoples found in the northwest. A remarkable Lebanese community also exists.