Centre, Burkina Faso — Towns & Travel Guide

What is Centre known for?

Centre is known above all for holding the capital of Burkina Faso. It is the smallest region by land. Because the region covers little more than the city of Ouagadougou and the plateau of Kadiogo province around it, its whole reputation rests on the capital, where government, the national museums, and the country's main road and rail lines all converge.

Where is Centre?

Centre is the region of Burkina Faso that surrounds the capital, Ouagadougou, and it corresponds closely to Kadiogo province. It is small. The land is the flat, low plateau on which Ouagadougou stands, part of the wide interior tableland that carries much of Burkina Faso, without the relief of hills or a large river running through the built-up core.

Because the region is so compact, its geography is essentially the geography of one city and its immediate plateau. Kadiogo province fills almost the whole of Centre, and the two names are often used for the same ground. The seasonal streams and reservoirs that ring Ouagadougou hold the water that the dry plateau does not, and the road corridors that fan out from the capital tie Centre to the regions beyond it.

What is Centre like?

Centre is the cultural heart of Burkina Faso because it holds the capital. French is the working language of government and schooling across the region, spoken alongside the country's own languages. The national museums stand here.

The Musée national du Burkina Faso keeps the country's collections, the Musée de la musique de Ouagadougou holds its instruments, and the Memorial Thomas Sankara marks a figure central to the nation's recent history. Much of the region's public life is the life of Ouagadougou itself, since Centre is little more than the capital and the plateau of Kadiogo around it. Film has a particular hold on the city, and the Filmmakers' square in the capital records that.

Religious sites sit close to the civic ones, from the Ouagadougou New Cathedral to the sanctuaire marial de Yagma on the edge of town. The result is a small region that carries the institutions of a whole country.

What is the history of Centre?

Centre traces its history through Ouagadougou. The city rose as a royal seat of the Mossi from about 1050, growing as the residence of the Mogho Naaba, the Mossi ruler, long before it became the capital of the modern state of Burkina Faso. The surrounding ground of Kadiogo province took shape as its hinterland.

When the country's regions were drawn, Centre was set out narrowly around the capital, so that its past is bound up with the rise of the city itself.

What is the climate of Centre?

Centre has a hot tropical climate on its interior plateau. The year splits sharply between a long dry season and a shorter wet one. Rain gathers in the middle months, when storms cross the plateau around Ouagadougou and fill the reservoirs of Kadiogo province, and the dry months that follow are hot and dusty as winds arrive from the north over Burkina Faso.

It is warm the year round, with the heaviest heat before the rains break.

How do you get to Centre?

Centre is reached through Ouagadougou. The capital of Burkina Faso holds the country's main international airport and the terminus of the rail line that runs down towards the coast, and roads from every direction converge on it. Most journeys into the region end on the Kadiogo plateau.

From there the rest of Centre is a short drive.