Tag Archives: Study in Burkina Faso

Arisen in 1960 from the break-up of French West Africa (AOF), Burkina Faso is among the countries that most dramatically express the conditions of African underdevelopment. Far from the sea, poor in natural resources and therefore remained poorly encouraged even in colonial times, Burkina Faso is devoid of valid production possibilities, which could change its state of persistent economic weakness; despite being an ethnically unitary nation, it has always lacked a well-defined identity. Already known under the name of Upper Volta, it was renamed with its current name, which means “Country of honest men”, on August 4, 1984, the anniversary of the coup that took place the previous year. The main resource is subsistence agriculture, organized with traditional methods and always subject to the unpredictability of the climate. The most important commercial product is cotton, the cultivation of which has been intensified as part of the recent economic restructuring plans. Burkina Faso is one of the most disadvantaged countries on Earth: the world ranking based on the United Nations Human Development Index sees it firmly in the last positions. Remittances from emigrants contribute substantially to partially compensating for the chronic deficit of the country’s trade balance. According to COUNTRYAAH, Burkina Faso is a nation in Western Africa, the capital city of which is Ouagadougou. The latest population of Burkina Faso is 20,903,284. REMZFAMILY: Lists and descriptions of main religions and beliefs in Burkina Faso, including religion demographics and statistics on Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc.
GEOGRAPHY
The territory of Burkina Faso extends into the vast central regions of the Sudanese belt and substantially corresponds to the slight crustal arch that separates the Niger depression from the marginal one of the Volta. Structurally it consists of a vast plateau of crystalline rocks (including granites, quartzites, schists) raised around 300-400 m and covered with thick laterite soils, not very suitable for crops. The tabular structure, monotonous and uniform, is broken here and there by the presence of isolated hills (Inselberge), mostly granite rock masses, which in southwestern Burkina Faso reach 800 m in the Banfora massif. AN the plateau lowers slightly towards the subsidence area of Niger; another depressed area extends to the S, along the middle course of the Volta Nero, in correspondence with the border with Ghana. Given its morphology, which presents an albeit tenuous watershed line, the country has two hydrographic fronts: one towards the E includes some tributaries of Niger, the other southern focuses on the main source branches of the Volta river, that is, the Volta Nero in the W, the Volta Rosso in the center and the Volta Bianco in the E. The feeding of these rivers, closely linked to the rainfall regime, gives them a strongly torrential regime with summer floods and low winter temperatures; two large floods follow one another between July and October, with extensive flooding, while in the winter semester the flow is minimal and the tributaries remain dry or present, where the bed is large, marshy pockets. The territory, between 10º and 15º latitude N, at a distance from the sea that is between 500 and 1000 km (therefore distinctly continental), falls within that climatic zone of West Africa subject alternately to the influences of harmattan, the desert wind that during winter brings dry and dusty air from NE,SE summer monsoon, coming from the Gulf of Guinea. These factors, on the whole rather simple, determine in the country a tropical climate of the “Sudanese” type, semi-arid, with average annual temperatures always above 25 ºC, modest rainfall, oscillating around 500-1000 mm per year; the southern region of Gaoua is however, it is already subject to a subequatorial climate with abundant rainfall (1500 mm) prolonged for more than six months a year and weaker temperature variations, generally below 7 ºC; on the other hand, at the extreme N the rainfall is less than 500 mm per year.