Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso spreads across a worn plateau where the Black, White and Red Volta rise before running south towards the sea. The land is mostly laterite and savannah, dotted with baobab, shea and néré trees. In the south-west it breaks into the sandstone needles of the Sindou Peaks and the waterfalls near Banfora; in the north it dries into the Sahel, with dunes around Gorom-Gorom. Villagers at Bazoulé keep sacred crocodiles in a pond, and elephants roam the parks of the south-east.

Legend makes the Mossi kingdoms the work of Ouedraogo, son of the warrior princess Yennenga, and for centuries Mossi kings, the Mogho Naba of Ouagadougou foremost among them, ruled the centre through elaborate courts. France took the region in the 1890s, created the colony of Upper Volta in 1919, divided it among its neighbours in 1932 and restored it in 1947. Independence followed in August 1960. In 1984 Thomas Sankara renamed the country, joining Mooré and Dioula words to mean ‘land of upright people’.

Every second year Ouagadougou fills with film-makers and audiences for FESPACO, the pan-African film festival first held in 1969, and Idrissa Ouédraogo’s Tilaï won the Grand Prix at Cannes in 1990. Kassena women at Tiébélé paint their round earthen houses with geometric designs in red, black and white. Muslims, Christians and followers of older beliefs live side by side. Gold mines and cotton fields bring in most export earnings, while women’s cooperatives press shea nuts into butter.