Yamoussoukro's Notre-Dame de la Paix, the world's largest basilica

 

In the Ivory Coast’s small and remote capital city stands a church as tall as St Peter’s in Rome, with personal air-conditioning for every seat. It is a bewildering legacy of the country’s ‘founding father’, Félix Houphouët-Boigny

Notre-Dame de la Paix is topped by a giant pearl dome that rises to 158 metres

 Each of the 7,000 seats in the basilica’s nave has its own personal air-conditioning system.

Inside there is standing room for 11,000, while each of the 7,000 seats in the nave has its own personal (Italian-built) air-conditioning system. Five-thousand shades of stained glass make up the windows, including one depicting Houphouët-Boigny kneeling in front of Jesus.

With less than one-third of the nation’s population Christian, attendances at the basilica’s services are low – usually numbering in the “few hundreds”

Notre-Dame de la Paix, built in Ivory Coast’s administrative capital Yamoussoukro between 1985 and 1989, is a church of such national pride that, during the country’s decade of periodic civil conflict, citizens often sought refuge within its walls, knowing it would never be attacked.