The Central African Empire originated in the Central African Republic on 4 December 1976 when President Jean-Bédel Bokassa called himself Emperor Bokassa I. A year later, on December 4, 1977, he turned to Emperor in a ceremony a cost of 20 million, one quarter of Central African GDP.
After its fall in 1979 after a France-supported coup, the country was renamed in the Central African Republic. The Central African Empire was together with Japan one of the last empire ranks.
On April 22, 2003, the Louvre des Antiquaires, a prestigious shopping center in Paris, had a temporary exhibition of the robes wearing Bokassa during its coronation. These were replicas of the costumes that Napoleon Bonaparte had worn during his coronation to France's Emperor in 1804.
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