You know when you start
watching a video of images of Burkina Faso and it starts off with
pictures of the president followed by the by-line 'Land of Upright
People' that you're not going to get a critically challenging review of
the country, one of the poorest countries
on the planet. Yet this video, created to
celebrate the fiftieth Burkina Faso's independence in 1960, still
provides a useful insight into the country with a sequence of images
depicting its people, towns, rural communities and countryside. Burkina
Faso, meaning 'the country of honourable people' is a neighbour to Mali to the north, Niger to the east, Benin to the south-east, Togo
and Ghana to the south and Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) to the south-west.
Its topography is shown left.
Burkina Faso is a country
with a tropical climate with warm, dry winters and hot, wet summers. It
is poor in natural resources; limited to manganese, limestone, marble,
phosphates, pumice, salt with small deposits of gold. Most of the
population of 16.7 million live in poverty in rural communities, scratching
out a living on land, of which less than 18% is arable, that is
increasingly turning to desert and suffering from recurring droughts.
Burkina Faso has three main rivers,
the Black Volta, Red Volta and White Volta and is also home to the
Banifing River (though mainly In Mali providing a boundary between the
two countries), Béli River, Komoé River (again, forming the border
between Burkina Faso and Côte d'Ivoire), Oti River (forming part of the
boundaries between Benin, Burkina Faso as well as Togo and Ghana), Sirba
River (that forms part of the boundary between Burkina Faso and Niger)
and Tapoa River (which, again, forms part of the boundary between Burkina
Faso and Niger.)
Places to visit in Burkina Faso
include the modern Musee Nationale devoted to local cultures, La Faret, a
popular Park in Ouagadougou and also the park of the Forest Knowledge
there which is seen as a spiritual retreat. The Centre Cultural Francaise
in the town of Bobo Dioulasso is also worth a visit for those who enjoy
art and music.
After you've seen these Burkina Faso images why not take a virtual tour of the country using the interactive
Google satellite map below?
Images of daily life in Burkina Faso from its towns to villages and people, created to celebrate Burkina Faso's Independence together with a video showing images of Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso is a country
with a tropical climate with warm, dry winters and hot, wet summers. It
is poor in natural resources; limited to manganese, limestone, marble,
phosphates, pumice, salt with small deposits of gold. Most of the
population of 16.7 million live in poverty in rural communities, scratching
out a living on land, of which less than 18% is arable, that is
increasingly turning to desert and suffering from recurring droughts. 
