page_title: Departments of Burkina Faso
section_title: Balé
hierarchical_section_title: Departments of Burkina Faso / List of departments by region and by province / Western Burkina Faso / Boucle du Mouhoun Region / Balé
context_page_description: The provinces of Burkina Faso are divided into 351 departments, whose urbanized areas are grouped into the same commune with the same name as the department. The 351 communes created in those departments have three kinds of status:
  49 urban communes, are grouping their main city/town and all other administrative villages in their department; in these 49 urban communes, the main city or town is subdivided into urban sectors — these 49 urban communes include the capital town of each one of the 45 provinces, and the commune of 4 additional departments, whose capitals are now large towns covering their respective urban areas: Bittou, Garango, Niangoloko and Pouytenga.
  302 rural communes are grouping all administrative villages in their department.
  Departments generally have the same name as their capital city or town, with a few exceptions. For the local elections in 2012, communes were created in each department that still did not have one. The departments are listed below, by province:
context_section_description: Bagassi Department
  Bana Department
  Boromo Department
  Fara Department
  Oury Department
  Pâ Department
  Pompoï Department
  Poura Department
  Siby Department
  Yaho Department
caption: Departments of Balé
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