Burkina Faso布基纳法索

Curatorial Note

This gallery presents a single national atlas from Burkina Faso, then known as Upper Volta, published in 1968 by the Centre Voltaïque de la Recherche Scientifique. The atlas emerged during a period of post-independence nation-building, when many newly sovereign African states sought to document their territories, resources, and peoples through comprehensive cartographic surveys. Although the tradition of national atlases in Upper Volta was nascent, this work represented a foundational effort to consolidate geographic knowledge into a single authoritative volume. The atlas likely followed a thematic structure, covering physical geography, administrative divisions, population, and economic activities, reflecting the scientific and developmental priorities of the era. As the only atlas in the collection, it stands as a pioneering artifact, offering a snapshot of the country’s landscape and society at a pivotal moment. Its legacy is primarily historical: it provides a baseline for later cartographic and planning efforts, and it remains a valuable reference for understanding the spatial imagination of Upper Volta in the late 1960s. Though no contemporary reviews are preserved, the atlas’s existence signals the early institutional commitment to mapping the nation, a practice that would evolve in subsequent decades.