Ouagadougou

Ouagadougou is the capital of Burkina Faso, a city on the central plateau of the country in West Africa. Every other year it holds FESPACO, the Pan-African Film and Television Festival, whose top prize is the Golden Stallion of Yennenga. The festival, first held in the late 1960s, brings filmmakers from across Africa to the city.

The town was the seat of the Mossi kingdom of Ouagadougou from the 15th century, and its king, the Mogho Naba, kept his court there. Later rulers kept the town as their seat while the kingdom traded with the Niger towns to the north. France took the town at the end of the 19th century and made it the capital of the new colony of Upper Volta in 1919. It became the capital of an independent Upper Volta in 1960, and the country took the name Burkina Faso, land of upright people, in the 1980s.

Brakina, the national brewery, brews Brakina and Flag beer in the city. Faso Dan Fani, a hand-woven striped cotton cloth, is made on looms in the city and worn for national holidays. The International Arts and Crafts Fair of Ouagadougou, held every other year, brings bronze castings, leatherwork and textiles from across Africa to its halls.

The Ouagadougou Cathedral, built of red brick in the 1930s, has twin towers above the old center. Bangr-Weoogo Urban Park, a protected forest inside the city, keeps trees, birds and small animals of the savanna along its paths. Bronze statues and masks made by the lost-wax method, a craft passed down in families of the city, are sold beside its craft workshops. The Mogho Naba's Friday ceremony, held before the palace gate, reenacts a king who prepared to ride out after a runaway wife and was persuaded to stay.