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Geography |
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Burkina Faso is located in the heart of West Africa, between longitudes 5 ° W and 2 ° East, and the latitudes 9 ° North and 15 ° North and covers an Area: 274,200 sq km (105,870 sq miles).
It is a continental country, with the neighboring Niger to the East, Mali to the North West, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo and Benin in the South. Being land-locked, it is more than 500 km offshore in the Gulf of Guinea.
The southern part of the country, less arid than the North, is wooded savannah, gradually drying out into sand and desert in the North. The Sahara desert is relentlessly moving South, however, stripping the savannah lands of trees and slowly turning the thin layer of cultivatable soil into sun-blackened rock-hard lakenite. Three great rivers, the Mouhoun, Nazinon and Nakambé (Black, Red and White Volta), water the great plains. |
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| Climate |
| Burkina Faso has a primarily tropical climate with two very distinct seasons: the rainy season with between 24-35 inches (600 and 900mm) of rainfall, and the dry season during which the harmattan blows, a hot dry wind from the Sahara. The rainy season lasts approximately 4 months, May/June to September, and is shorter in the North of the country . |
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