Former international football star George Weah has been sworn in as Liberia's new president.
It is the country's first transition between democratically-elected leaders since 1944.
Mr Weah, 51, took over from Nobel laureate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
Ms Sirleaf spent 12 years at the helm, steering the west african nation away from the trauma of a civil war.
Mr Weah was sworn in as president by the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Francis Korkpor
The former football star defeated Vice-President Joseph Boakai to win the election with 61.5% of the vote.
The ceremony took place at a packed sports stadium near the capital, Monrovia, with several African heads of state in attendance, along with friends and former colleagues from his football years.
Crowds queued for miles to reach the stadium, singing, dancing and waving the Liberian flag as they waited.
Mr Weah has vowed to make prosperity and job creation the hallmarks of his presidency.
He grew up in Monrovia and went on to star for AC Milan, Paris St Germain and Chelsea, and became the only African to win the FIFA World Player of the Year award.
Liberia, Africa's oldest modern republic, is one of the poorest countries in the world, ranking a mere 177th on the 188 countries in the Human Development Index compiled by the UN Development Programme.
Its last democratic transfer of power occurred in 1944 and was followed by a military coup in 1980 and a 14-year civil war that ended only in 2003.
