Burkina Faso Overview
OVERVIEW Burkina Faso (formerly Upper Volta) is a landlocked West African nation and former French colony. It is bordered to the east by Niger, to the north and to the west by Mali, to the southwest by Ivory Coast, to the south by Ghana and Togo, and to the southeast by Benin. Upper Volta gained its independence from France on Aug. 5, 1960. Decades of political instability, numerous military coups and highly suspect elections followed. The nation was renamed in 1984. Multi-party...