Thanks for watching.... 1. Ouagadougou 2. Bobo-Dioulasso 3. Koudougou 4. Ouahigouya 5. Banfora 6. Dédougou 7. Kaya 8. Dori 9. Tenkodogo 10. Reo Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Largest_cities_of_Burkina_Faso Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa around 274,200 square kilometres (105,900 sq mi) in size. It is surrounded by six countries: Mali to the north; Niger to the east; Benin to the southeast; Togo and Ghana to the south; and Ivory Coast to the southwest. Its capital is Ouagadougou. As of 2014, its population is estimated at just over 17.3 million. Formerly called the Republic of Upper Volta, the country was renamed "Burkina Faso" on 4 August 1984 by then-President Thomas Sankara. Residents of Burkina Faso are known as Burkinabè. French is an official language of government and business. Prior to the conquest of what is now Burkina Faso by the French and other colonial powers during the late 19th century the country was ruled by various ethnic groups including the Mossi kingdoms. After gaining independence from France in 1960, the country underwent many governmental changes. Today it is a semi-presidential republic. Blaise Compaoré was the most recent president and ruled the country from 1987until he was ousted from power by the popular youth upheaval of 31 October 2014. The northwestern part of today's Burkina Faso was populated by hunter-gatherers between 14,000 and 5000 BC. Their tools, including scrapers, chisels and arrowheads, were discovered in 1973 through archeological excavations. Agricultural settlements were established between 3600 and 2600 BC. The Bura culture was an Iron-Age civilization centered in the southwest portion of modern-day Niger and in the southeast part of contemporary Burkina Faso. Iron industry, in both smelting and forging for tools and weapons, had developed in Sub-Saharan Africa by 1200 BC. Historians debate the exact dates when Burkina Faso's many ethnic groups arrived in the country. The Proto-Mossi arrived in the far eastern part of what is today Burkina Faso sometime between AD 700 and the 11th century, the Samo arrived around the 1400s, the Dogon lived in Burkina Faso's north and northwest regions until sometime in the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries and many of the other diverse ethnic groups which currently make up the country's population arrived in the region during this time. During the Middle Ages the Mossi established several separate kingdoms including the kingdoms of Tenkodogo, Yatenga, Gourma, Zandoma, and Ouagadougou. Sometime between 1328 and 1338 Mossi warriors raided Timbuktu but the Mossi were defeated by Sonni Ali of Songhai at the Battle of Kobi in Mali in 1483. During the early 16th century the Songhai conducted many slave raids into what is today Burkina Faso. During the 18th Century the Gwiriko Empire was established at Bobo Dioulasso and ethnic groups such as the Dyan, Lobi, and Birifor settled along the Black Volta. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burkina_Faso

• published: 17 Dec 2014
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