Ghana

Long before Europeans arrived, the forest zone of present-day Ghana was rich in two things the wider world wanted: gold from river gravels and shallow pits, and kola nuts, the caffeine-laden stimulant traded north across the Sahel. Towns such as Begho, near the northern forest edge, grew up as markets where Akan gold met Mande traders from the Niger bend.

The Akan peoples organised themselves into matrilineal clans and small states ruled by chiefs who sat on carved stools rather than thrones. The stool, not the person, holds the office; to 'enstool' a chief is to install him, and 'destool' means removal. That language is still used in newspapers today.

Around 1701 Osei Tutu, with his priest Okomfo Anokye, united several Akan states into the Asante confederacy with Kumasi as capital. Tradition holds that the Golden Stool descended from the sky into Osei Tutu's lap, carrying the soul of the nation. Asante grew into the strongest power of the forest, controlling trade routes to the coast and the north.

The kingdom fought the British repeatedly through the 19th century. In 1900 the queen mother Yaa Asantewaa led the last war after a British governor demanded to sit on the Golden Stool; the stool was hidden and never surrendered. The Asantehene still reigns in Kumasi today as a cultural and moral authority.

The Portuguese reached the coast in 1471 and in 1482 built São Jorge da Mina, now Elmina Castle, to secure the gold trade: hence the name Gold Coast. Dutch, English, Danish, Swedish and Brandenburg traders followed, and by the 18th century more than 60 forts and lodges stood along about 500 km of shore, the densest chain of European fortifications anywhere in Africa.

Gold gave way to people. From the late 17th century the forts became holding pens for captives brought from the interior, often taken in wars and raids, sold through African intermediaries and shipped to the Caribbean and the Americas. Cape Coast Castle, headquarters of the British, and Elmina, taken by the Dutch in 1637, held hundreds of people at a time in underground dungeons.

Britain abolished its slave trade in 1807, but the forts stayed as trading posts and colonial offices. In the 1870s the British bought out the Dutch and declared the Gold Coast Colony, then fought their way inland to Kumasi.

Today the castles are UNESCO World Heritage sites and places of pilgrimage for people of African descent. Guides take groups through the male and female dungeons and to the 'Door of No Return'. Many visitors from the diaspora come for the Emancipation Day and PANAFEST events, and some hold private ceremonies inside.

The Gold Coast became a cocoa colony in the early 20th century, with African farmers planting millions of trees in the forest. Educated elites and returning soldiers after the Second World War pushed for self-rule; the 1948 Accra riots, after police shot ex-servicemen marching to the governor, sped things up.

Kwame Nkrumah, educated in the United States and Britain, founded the Convention People's Party in 1949 and won elections under colonial rule. At midnight on 6 March 1957 he declared Ghana independent, naming it after the medieval Sahel empire. The black star on the flag became a symbol for independence movements across the continent.

Nkrumah built the Akosombo dam, Tema harbour and schools, and pushed for African unity, but his one-party state grew authoritarian and the economy faltered. A coup removed him in 1966. Coups followed until Jerry Rawlings, who first seized power in 1979 and again in 1981, steered the country back to elections in 1992.

Since then power has changed hands peacefully between the National Democratic Congress and the New Patriotic Party several times, a record that underpins Ghana's reputation for stability. The economy boomed on gold, cocoa and, from 2010, offshore oil, then fell into a debt crisis in 2022 that required an IMF programme.

Ghana has about 34 million people and more than 70 languages. The Akan, including the Asante, Fante, Akuapem and others, make up nearly half the population and Twi works as a national street language. The Ga live around Accra, the Ewe in the Volta Region and across the border in Togo, and a mosaic of peoples such as the Dagomba, Gonja and Frafra fill the north.

English is the official language, taught in schools and used by government and the media. Ghanaian Pidgin English is common among young urban men, and code-switching between English and Twi is normal even on the radio.

Names often tell the day of birth: an Akan boy born on Friday may be Kofi, a girl born on Saturday Ama. Many people carry an English first name, a day name and a family name. Titles matter: people are addressed as Auntie, Uncle, Madam, Boss or Chief depending on age and rank.

Chieftaincy runs alongside the state. Chiefs and queen mothers settle land and family disputes and host festivals; a House of Chiefs is written into the constitution. Disputes over succession sometimes turn violent, as in Bawku in the Upper East.

Around seven in ten Ghanaians are Christian, with Pentecostal and charismatic churches growing fast; about one in five is Muslim, mostly in the north and in the zongo quarters of southern towns. Church slogans are painted on taxis and shopfronts, and all-night prayer meetings fill stadiums.

Traditional religion has not disappeared. Libations are poured to ancestors at ceremonies, shrines stand in many villages, and festivals follow the traditional calendar. Christianity and custom sit together: a chief may be a Methodist and still perform rites for the stool.

Funerals are among the biggest social events. They take place at weekends, often weeks after death, with printed posters, matching red-and-black or white cloth, drumming and dancing. The Ga are known for figurative coffins shaped like fish, cars or cocoa pods.

Each people has its festivals: the Ga celebrate Homowo, 'hooting at hunger', in August; the Fante of Cape Coast hold Fetu Afahye in September; the Asante mark Akwasidae every six weeks; the Ewe of Anloga hold Hogbetsotso in November. Visitors are generally welcome, and a local guide will explain what can be photographed.

Ghana runs from a lagoon-lined coast through a belt of tropical forest, now much cut back for cocoa and mining, to open Guinea savanna in the north. Lake Volta, created by the Akosombo dam in 1965, is one of the largest artificial lakes in the world and cuts the country in two.

The land sets the menu. The forest grows plantain, cassava, cocoyam and palm nuts, pounded into fufu and cooked into palm-nut soup; the coast eats fermented corn as kenkey and banku with fried or grilled fish; the north lives on millet, sorghum and shea. Shito, a black pepper sauce of dried fish and shrimp, goes on almost everything.

Kente, the strip-woven silk and cotton cloth of the Asante and Ewe, began as royal dress and is now worn at graduations and weddings worldwide; each pattern has a name and meaning. Adinkra symbols, stamped on cloth and carved into buildings, express proverbs such as 'Sankofa': go back and fetch what you left behind.

Highlife music grew from brass bands and guitar bands in the early 20th century and shaped much of West African pop. Hiplife and today's Afrobeats-leaning 'Ghana music' fill the radio, and Accra's art scene, from the Chale Wote street festival to new galleries, draws artists from across the diaspora.