Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso is a country in West Africa.

It has no sea. The land is wide and mostly flat. Grass grows in the north, and more trees grow in the south. The capital city is Ouagadougou.

Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa, which means it has no coast. Its capital, Ouagadougou, is in the middle of the country, about 800 kilometers from the Atlantic Ocean.

Most of the country sits on a wide, gently sloping plateau covered in savanna, a grassland with scattered trees. The north is grassy and dry, and the south has more trees. About 24 million people lived there in 2025. The country's name, chosen in 1984, means Land of Incorruptible People: people who cannot be bribed.

Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in western Africa on an extensive plateau that tilts slightly to the south. Britannica describes its savanna as grassy in the north, giving way gradually to sparse forest in the south. Ouagadougou, the capital, lies in the center, about 800 km from the Atlantic.

A former French colony, the country became independent as Upper Volta in 1960 and took the name Burkina Faso, Land of Incorruptible People, in 1984. The World Bank put its population at 24,074,580 in 2025. The eastern and central regions are the most densely settled, holding about half of all the people, and more than two-thirds of the population is rural.

Ouagadougou is the biggest city.

It has big trees and a market. Bobo-Dioulasso is a city in the west. Long ago, people built tall stone walls at a place called Loropéni.

Ouagadougou is the capital and largest city. It was once the capital of a Mossi kingdom, and the Mossi king, called the morho naba, still lives there. Every two years it hosts FESPACO, a big festival of African films.

Bobo-Dioulasso, in the west, was the country's business center when the railroad from the coast ended there. In the south, the Ruins of Loropéni are stone walls up to six meters tall around an abandoned settlement at least 1,000 years old. They were Burkina Faso's first World Heritage Site, listed in 2009.

Ouagadougou, the capital and largest city, was the seat of the Mossi kingdom of Wagadugu (founded in the 15th century) and is still the residence of the morho naba. Britannica describes a city of large trees and modern public buildings beside traditional neighborhoods, with a market, a crafts center and the National Museum; it hosts the biennial Pan-African Film Festival (FESPACO). Bobo-Dioulasso was the economic capital while it was the terminus of the railroad from Abidjan, and lost some of that role after the line reached Ouagadougou in 1955.

UNESCO inscribed the Ruins of Loropéni in 2009: laterite walls up to 6 m high around an abandoned settlement, the best preserved of ten fortresses in the Lobi area, dated to at least the 11th century and flourishing from the 14th to 17th centuries with the trans-Saharan gold trade. The Ancient Ferrous Metallurgy Sites (2019) include about fifteen standing furnaces; Douroula, from the 8th century BCE, is the oldest evidence of iron production found in the country.

Elephants live in Burkina Faso's parks.

Hippos and crocodiles live in the rivers. Buffalo, antelope and monkeys live there too. Many birds fly over the savanna.

Burkina Faso's wild animals include buffalo, antelope, hippopotamuses, elephants, crocodiles and monkeys, and there are many kinds of birds, insects and river fish. Its national parks include Po in the south, Arly in the southeast and W in the east, which crosses the borders into Benin and Niger.

W and Arly are part of a huge protected area shared by three countries, called the W-Arly-Pendjari Complex. UNESCO says it has the largest group of elephants in West Africa and the region's last strong group of lions, and is a safe home for animals that have disappeared from much of the region.

Britannica lists buffalo, antelope, lions, hippopotamuses, elephants, crocodiles and monkeys, with rich bird and insect life and many fish species in the rivers; the IUCN Red List's 2025 lion assessment marks lions in Burkina Faso as possibly still present rather than confirmed. The national parks include Po (south-center), Arly (southeast) and W (east), which straddles the borders with Benin and Niger.

W and Arly belong to the W-Arly-Pendjari Complex, a World Heritage Site of 1,714,831 ha shared by Niger, Burkina Faso and Benin and made of nine protected areas in the Volta basin. UNESCO calls it the largest and most important continuum of land, wetland and aquatic ecosystems in the West African savanna belt. It holds about 85 percent of the region's savanna elephants, the only viable lion population in the area and almost all the large mammals typical of West Africa, from African manatees to topi antelope. Seven of the nine fish species found only in the Volta basin live there. Poaching, illegal grazing and spreading farmland remain threats.

About 24 million people live in Burkina Faso.

Many people speak a language called Moore. Most families live in villages. They grow millet, sorghum, corn and rice.

All citizens of Burkina Faso are called Burkinabé, whatever their background. The largest group is the Mossi, and their language, Moore, is spoken by most people. Dyula is widely used for buying and selling. The Gurunsi, Senufo, Bwa, Lobi, Fulani, Hausa, Tuareg and others live there too. In 2024 all the national languages became official, and French and English are working languages.

More than two-thirds of people live in villages. Families grow sorghum, millet, corn, peanuts and rice to eat, and cotton to sell. Mossi antelope masks can be 2 meters tall, and soccer is the country's favorite sport.

Burkinabé is the name for all citizens. The Mossi, who speak Moore, a Gur language of the Niger-Congo family, are the major group; other Gur-speaking peoples include the Gurunsi, Senufo, Bwa and Lobi, while the Samo, Marka, Busansi and Dyula speak Mande languages, and the Hausa, Tuareg and Fulani are also present. A constitutional amendment promulgated in January 2024 gave all national languages official status and made French, the former official language, a working language alongside English. More than half the population is Muslim, about one-fifth Roman Catholic and about one-sixth follow traditional religions.

About nine-tenths of people farm or raise livestock, mostly for their own needs: sorghum, millet, corn, peanuts, rice and fonio are grown for food, and cotton, shea nuts, sesame and sugarcane are exported. Britannica notes Mossi antelope masks up to 2 m tall, Bobo butterfly masks and Lobi wood carving. Severe droughts from time to time have led many people to move from the countryside to towns, or to Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana.