[3] The Assinie area starts at the location of the Paul-Emile Durand cottage in the west bordered to the south by the ocean and accessible by the Assinie-Mafia road.

Opposite the town of Assinie-Mafia is a narrow peninsula (100–1000 m wide) extending from the west and 15 km long which is occupied by luxury villas and huts.

The mouth of the lagoon which marks the end of the Assinie-Mafia peninsula is called La Passe where the high-rise resort and the smoking of tchoukourou is very popular.

[4] The eight villages of the sub-prefecture of Assinie-Mafia and their population in 2014 are:[4] Assinie (formerly Issiny) was the first trading post on the Eburnean coast although no vestige of that time remains today.

[11] In France, the two were presented to King Louis XIV and converted to Catholicism (Aniaba was baptized by Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux), before returning to Assinie.

An inspection of the fortified trading post at Assini in 1850 mentioned: "order and cleanliness reign within its walls", the existence of a bastion of masonry (four were originally planned), and the presence of small artillery equivalent to that at Grand-Bassam.

The men "are in a better place to live [than at Grand-Bassam], where resources are greater because of more frequent intercourse with the natives and are removed from that product of fatigue for the body and sight an existence almost continually passed on moving bleached sand, roasted by a burning sun"[13] The Ivorian postal service began in this locality on 29 July 1843.

Assinie was the third largest port in Ivory Coast in 1907 but it quickly lost all commercial and strategic importance in favour of Grand-Bassam, then Bingerville, and finally Port-Bouët/Abidjan.