Burkina Faso, landlocked country in western Africa. The country occupies an extensive plateau, and its geography is characterized by a savanna that is grassy in the north and gradually gives way to sparse forests in the south.

A former French colony, it gained independence as Upper Volta in 1960. The name Burkina Faso, which means “Land of Incorruptible People,” was adopted in 1984. The capital, Ouagadougou, is in the centre of the country and lies about 500 miles (800 km) from the Atlantic Ocean.

Burkina Faso is bounded by Mali to the north and west, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, and Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Togo to the south.

The major ethnolinguistic group of Burkina Faso is the Mossi. They speak a Niger-Congo language of the Gur branch and have been connected for centuries to the region they inhabit. They have absorbed a number of peoples including the Gurma and the Yarse. The last-mentioned group has Mande origins but is assimilated into the Mossi and shares their language (called Moore). Other Gur-speaking peoples are the Gurunsi, the Senufo, the Bwa, and the Lobi.

About nine-tenths of the population is engaged in subsistence agriculture or livestock raising. Difficult economic conditions, made worse by severe intermittent droughts, have provoked considerable migration from rural to urban areas within Burkina Faso and to neighbouring countries, most notably Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. As many as 1.5 million people, or almost one-third of the country’s labour force, have been abroad at any given time. (In the early 21st century, however, unrest in neighbouring countries, particularly in Côte d’Ivoire, made it difficult for Burkinabés to find employment.) The development of industry in Burkina Faso is hampered by the small size of the market economy and by the absence of a direct outlet to the sea. Beginning in the late 1990s, the government began to privatize some state-owned entities in order to attract foreign investment.