Why it looks like this

Long before colonization, Ouagadougou was the capital of the Mossi empire, and the Mogho Naaba still holds court here — a Friday ceremony at the palace re-enacts the ritual of an emperor persuaded not to ride to war.

The French made the city capital of Upper Volta and overlaid a grid centred on their administrative quarter, with radial roads running out to Bobo-Dioulasso and the other Mossi towns. Burkina Faso's capital has since spread far over the flat savanna, its planned core ringed by fast-growing informal districts.