Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso is a country in Western Africa, with its capital at Ouagadougou, and is home to roughly 23.5M people.
French is the official language; the currency in circulation is West African CFA franc (Fr); people from here are called Burkinabe.
- »The name combines words from two different languages: Burkina from Mooré, Faso from Dioula.
Burkina Faso touches six neighbours: Benin to the southeast, Ghana to the south, Ivory Coast to the southwest, Mali to the north, Niger to the northeast and Togo to the southeast. Directions run from one centre to the other.
Ouagadougou, usually shortened to Ouaga, was the seat of the Mossi emperor from the 15th century and hosts Africa's largest film festival.
273,854 km² (105,736 sq mi), 73rd largest of 198 countries and territories on file, almost exactly the size of New Zealand.
Population 23,548,781, 59th of 198 on file. That averages 86 per km² (223 per sq mi).
Red for the revolution, green for the land, the gold star for the guiding light of the revolution. The name means 'land of upright people', chosen by Thomas Sankara in 1984.