Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa with an area of 274,200 km2 (105,900 sq mi), bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the south, and the Ivory Coast to the southwest. As of 2021, the country had an estimated population of 20,321,378. Previously called Republic of Upper Volta (1958–1984), it was renamed Burkina Faso by President Thomas Sankara. Its citizens are known as Burkinabès, and its capital and largest city is Ouagadougou.
Dyula is a language of the Mande language family spoken mainly in Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast and Mali, and also in some other countries, including Ghana, Guinea and Guinea-Bissau. It is one of the Manding languages and is most closely related to Bambara, being mutually intelligible with Bambara as well as Malinke. It is a trade language in West Africa and is spoken by millions of people, either as a first or second language. Similar to the other Mande languages, it uses tones. It may be written in the Latin, Arabic or N'Ko scripts.
Ouagadougou is the capital of Burkina Faso and the administrative, communications, cultural, and economic centre of the nation. It is also the country's largest city, with a population of 2,415,266 in 2019. The city's name is often shortened to Ouaga. The inhabitants are called ouagalais. The spelling of the name Ouagadougou is derived from the French orthography common in former French African colonies.
The music of Burkina Faso includes the folk music of 60 different ethnic groups. The Mossi people, centrally located around the capital, Ouagadougou, account for 40% of the population while, to the south, Gurunsi, Gurma, Dagaaba and Lobi populations, speaking Gur languages closely related to the Mossi language, extend into the coastal states. In the north and east the Fulani of the Sahel preponderate, while in the south and west the Mande languages are common; Samo, Bissa, Bobo, Senufo and Marka. Burkinabé traditional music has continued to thrive and musical output remains quite diverse. Popular music is mostly in French: Burkina Faso has yet to produce a major pan-African success.
The Lobi belong to an ethnic group that originated in what is today Ghana. Starting around 1770, many Lobi peoples migrated into southern Burkina Faso and later into Côte d'Ivoire. The group consists of a little over a 1,000,000 people. They make up about 2.4 percent of the Burkina Faso population. The exact percentage of Lobis in Ivory Ghana and Ivory Coast is hard to quantify since they are often counted as part of larger groups like the Mole-Dagon of Ghana. Estimates however point to around 250,000 Lobis in both of these countries. [The Lobi people speak two main languages, which are the Miiwo and Birifor. Miiwo is widely spoken in Burkina Faso and Cote d'Ivoire while a majority of Lobis in Ghana speak Birifor. Oftentimes, people use the language Birifor interchangeably with Lobi, especially in Ghana.
The Mossi are a Gur ethnic group native to modern Burkina Faso, primarily the Volta River basin. The Mossi are the largest ethnic group in Burkina Faso, constituting 52% of the population, or about 11.1 million people. The other 48% of Burkina Faso's population is composed of more than 60 ethnic groups, mainly the Gurunsi, Senufo, Lobi, Bobo and Fulani. The Mossi speak the Mòoré language.
The Dagombas or Dagbamba are a Gur ethnic group of northern Ghana, numbering more than 3.1 million people. The term Dagbamba is also used to refer to other descendants of Naa Gbewaa including the Mamprusi and Nanumba. They inhabit the Northern Region of Ghana in the Guinea savanna region. They speak the Dagbani language which belongs to the Mole-Dagbani sub-group of the Gur languages. There are more than 3 million native speakers of Dagbani. The Dagomba are historically related to the Mossi people. The Mossi Kingdoms were founded by Yennenga, a daughter of the founder of the Dagbon Kingdom, Naa Gbewaa. The Mohi/Mossi now have their homeland in central present-day Burkina Faso. Aside the Mossi, the Dagombas are the progenitors of the Bouna state of Ivory Coast, and the Dagaaba states of Upper West Region of Ghana. The homeland of the Dagomba is called Dagbon and now covers about 20,000 km2 in area.
Koudougou is a city in Burkina Faso's Boulkiemdé Province. It is located 75 kilometres (47 mi) west of Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. With a population of 160,239 (2019) it is the third most populous city in Burkina Faso after Ouagadougou and Bobo Dioulasso and is mainly inhabited by the Gurunsi and Mossi ethnic groups. Koudougou is situated on the only railway line in Burkina Faso and has some small industries, a market, a university and provincial government offices.
The Lossos are an ethnic and linguistic group of people living in the Doufelgou District (Préfecture) of the Kara Region in Northern Togo, West Africa. The district capital is Niamtougou which is also an important regional market town. The Lossos live on a plateau in the Togo Mountains between two mountain ranges: the Kabiyé Mountains to the South and the Défalé Chain to the North. They occupy the communities of Niamtougou, Koka, Baga, Ténéga, Siou, Djogrergou, Sioudouga, Kpadeba, Hago, Koukou, and Kounfaga. The Doufelgou District is bordered by the Kozah District to the South, by the Binah District to the East, by the Bassar District to the West, by the Kéran District to the North, and by the international border with Bénin to the Northeast.
Paga is a town in Upper East Region of Ghana, lying north of Bolgatanga. Paga is the capital of Kassena Nankana West District, a district in the Upper East Region in the northern part of Ghana. The town is located on the border of Burkina Faso and is 166 km south of Ouagadougou via the N5 highway, the main road linking Ghana and Burkina Faso. The majority of the people of Paga are of the Kassena tribe.
The Frafra are a subset of the Gurunsi peoples living in Northern Ghana. The preferred name for the group is Fare-Fare. The adopted name Frafra is a corruption from colonial times of the greeting "Ya fara-fara?" which means "How is your suffering [work]?" It may carry pejorative overtones in local usage. Frafra-language speakers number approximately 300,000. The larger group of Gurunsi people inhabit southern Burkina Faso and Northern Ghana.
The Mossi Kingdoms, sometimes referred to as the Mossi Empire, were a group of powerful kingdoms in modern-day Burkina Faso which dominated the region of the upper Volta river for hundreds of years. The largest Mossi kingdoms was that of Ouagadougou and the king of Ouagadougou known as the Mogho Naaba, or King of All the World, serves as the Emperor of all the Mossi. The first kingdom was founded when Dagomba warriors from the region that is present-day Ghana and Mandé warriors moved into the area and intermarried with local people. Centralization of the political and military powers of the kingdoms begin in the 13th century and led to conflicts between the Mossi kingdoms and many of the other powerful states in the region. In 1896, the French took over the kingdoms and created the French Upper Volta which largely used the Mossi administrative structure for many decades in governing the colony.
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The Bobo are a Mande ethnic group living primarily in Burkina Faso, with some living north in Mali. Bobo is also a shortened name of the second-largest city in Burkina Faso, Bobo-Dioulasso.
Wobogo was the Mogho Naba (ruler) of Ouagadougou from 1890 to 1897, at the time of the French colonial conquest of Upper Volta. Wobogu was originally called Boukary Koutou, but dropped those names on his accession and assumed the name "Wobogu", meaning elephant.
The Kassena people are an ethnic group located along the northern Ghana and Burkina Faso border. They speak the Kasem language. Their king lives in the town of Tiébélé. The Kasenna are closely related to the people of Nankanni and were brought together to form the Kassena-Nankana administrative district in 1936. As of 2008 the (Kassena-Nankana) area comprises two districts: Kassena Nankana West and Kassena Nankana East.
The Lyélé language (Lele) is spoken in the Sanguié Province of Burkina Faso by approximately 130,000 people known as Lyéla, Léla, Gourounsi or Gurunsi. It is spoken in the towns of Réo, Kyon, Tenado, Dassa, Didyr, Godyr, Kordié, Pouni and Zawara. The language is also sometimes known by the wider term Gurunsi.
The Yarse, also spelt Yarsé, Yarsin or Yarcin, are a people of Burkina Faso, living among the Mossi. The population in the mid-1990s was estimated at 190,000, of whom 90% were Muslims.
Burkina Faso is a small, landlocked country north of Ghana and south of Mali and Niger. Economically, it is one of the four or five poorest countries in the world. Culturally, it is extremely rich. In part this is because so few people from Burkina have become Muslim or Christian. Many of the ancient artistic traditions for which Africa is so well known have been preserved in Burkina Faso because so many people continue to honor the ancestral spirits, and the spirits of nature. In great part they honor the spirits through the use of masks and carved figures. Many of the countries to the north of Burkina Faso had become predominantly Muslim, while many of the countries to the south of Burkina Faso are heavily Christian. In contrast many of the people of Burkina Faso continue to offer prayers and sacrifices to the spirits of nature and to the spirits of their ancestors. The result is that they continue to use the sorts of art that we see in museums in Europe and America.
The Nuna people, or Nunuma, are subgroup of the Gurunsi people in Southern Burkina Faso, estimated 150,000 population, and Ghana. The Nuna are known for their masks. The group speaks the Nuni language.
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