Burkina Faso (formerly Upper Volta) is a landlocked Sahel country that shares borders with six nations. It lies between the Sahara desert and the Gulf of Guinea, south of the loop of the Niger River, mostly between latitudes 9° and 15°N (a small area is north of 15°), and longitudes 6°W and 3°E. The land is green in the south, with forests and fruit trees, and semi-arid in the north. Most of central Burkina Faso lies on a savanna plateau, above sea level, with fields, brush, and scattered trees. Burkina Faso's game preserves – the most important of which are Arly, Nazinga, and W National Park—contain lions, elephants, hippopotamus, monkeys, common warthogs, and antelopes. Previously the endangered painted hunting dog, Lycaon pictus occurred in Burkina Faso, but, although the last sightings were made in Arli National Park, the species is considered extirpated from Burkina Faso.
Burkina Faso has a total area of , of which is land and water. Comparatively, it is slightly larger than New Zealand and Colorado. Its borders total : Benin , Ivory Coast , Ghana , Mali , Niger , and Togo . It has no coastline or maritime claims.
This is a list of the extreme points of Burkina Faso, the points that are farther north, south, east or west than any other location.
Northernmost point – unnamed location on the border with Mali, Sahel Region
Easternmost point – unnamed location on the border with Benin immediately south of the Burkina Faso-Benin-Niger tripoint, Est Region
Southernmost point – unnamed location on the border with Ivory Coast immediately south of the village of Kpuere, Sud-Ouest Region
Westernmost point – the tripoint with Mali and Ivory Coast, Cascades Region
It is made up of two major types of countryside. The larger part of the country is covered by a peneplain, which forms a gently undulating landscape with, in some areas, a few isolated hills, the last vestiges of a Precambrian massif. The southwest of the country, on the other hand, forms a sandstone massif, where the highest peak, Ténakourou, is found at an elevation of .