A Name for All the People

Located on the southern edge of the Sahara, it is one of the poorest countries in Africa, with a per capita income of $210 a year. Its 6.7 million people have been suffering from recurring drought that has caused widespread hardship and political instability. This month Upper Volta shed the name that the French bequeathed along with independence 24 years ago. President Thomas Sankara, 34, who seized power last year, decreed that his country would hence forth be known as Burkina Faso.

The change is but the latest of a series that has kept cartographers busy as independent African nations shed their colonial past. The new name was derived from two of the country's main languages. In More, spoken by some 3 million people, burkina means "ancestral home" faso means "those who are dignified" in Dioula. Sankara also redesigned the flag and commissioned a national anthem that can be performed with traditional instruments. "Our new name represents a psychological and spiritual change,"explains Minister of Environment and Tourism Basile Guisso. "It will help revolutionize the way people think and help them deal with the modern world."