Upper Volta set the colonial name aside

Burkina Faso is the name a state gave itself when it no longer wanted to be called Upper Volta. The old name described a river. The new one describes no water and no coast. It describes the claim to set the colonial name aside.

The country lies in West Africa, with no access to the sea, between Mali, Niger, Benin, Togo, Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire. On 272,967 square kilometres live 24,074,580 people. The capital, Ouagadougou, stands in the centre, on the plateau. The north is Sahel, the south grows wetter, toward the direction in which the rivers drain to Ghana. On 4 August 1984 the Republic of Upper Volta ceased to exist under that name.

From a river's name to another word

The country was called Upper Volta because it lay on the upper course of the Volta, the rivers that flow south out of the country and through Ghana toward the sea. The colonial name was a description of location from the point of view of the lower course. People living upstream are, in that name, only the upper reach of someone else's river. On 4 August 1984, under President Thomas Sankara, it became Burkina Faso. Burkina comes from Mooré and stands for the upright people. Faso comes from Dioula and stands for the fatherland.

A new name changes what the state appeals to when it introduces itself. Ouagadougou remained the capital, the neighbours remained the same, the rivers still flow south. What changed is the sentence on the map. Upper Volta was a hydrological finding. Burkina Faso is a political decision about the language in which the country wants to be named. The Volta is still there afterwards. It is only no longer the name.

Sahel, plateau, no sea

Ouagadougou lies roughly in the middle, not on a border and not on a river that would stand in for the sea. Around it lie Mali and Niger to the north, Benin and Togo to the east, Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire to the south. Every road to the Atlantic passes through one of those states. The north belongs to the Sahel, drier, more open, on the threshold of the desert. The south is wetter and more closely settled along the routes toward Ghana. The capital sits between them, on the plateau.

The area of 272,967 square kilometres is not an empty Sahel rectangle. It is a slope from north to south, and the capital sits on the sill. Draw Burkina Faso only as a dry landlocked country and the south disappears, the south where the rivers gather that once carried the state's name. Draw it only as the upper course of the Volta and you fall back into the name the state set aside. Both are geography. Only one of them is still the name of the state.

A landlocked state can set aside the colonial name. It does not acquire a coast by doing so.

— TerraTally · Countries desk

Which language conducts the office

On 30 December 2023 a constitutional amendment redrafted the article on language. Since then the official languages are the national languages that a statute declares as such. French and English are working languages. French had been the official language before, the inheritance of the colonial administration and of the republic that referred back to France, even after the name had changed. The name became political in 1984. The language of the files became political again later.

Mooré, Dioula and Fulfulde are among the national languages, beside many others. The constitution does not count them out as a closed list in a single sentence. It says the statute makes them official. A European language therefore no longer stands alone above the others in the state. The CFA franc of the West African central bank remains the currency all the same, shared with other states of the region. The country remains without a sea.

Burkina Faso is Upper Volta only as the origin of a name that was set aside. Ouagadougou governs a country between the Sahel and the wetter valleys in the south, with no port of its own. The national languages have become official, French has remained a working language. The river still flows. It is only no longer the name of the country.