500 Francs CFA Hanging Gardens of Babylon

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon series, issued through the Banque Centrale des États de l'Afrique de l'Ouest under BCEAO licensing arrangements, represents one of several Seven Wonders collector programs that proliferated among West African franc-zone states in the late 2000s — nominally Ivorian issues but produced entirely for the international numismatic market, with no meaningful domestic circulation intended or achieved. Ivory Coast itself was barely a functional state at the time of striking, still fractured by the First Ivorian Civil War's aftermath and the political stalemate between Gbagbo's south and the Forces Nouvelles-controlled north.