The land we live on and the people who make it home

Where we are

A country on the Gulf of Guinea, crossed by the line of zero longitude

Ghana sits on the coast of West Africa, facing the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south. Côte d'Ivoire lies to the west, Burkina Faso to the northwest and north, and Togo to the east.¹ The country covers 238,533 square kilometres.¹⁵

Here is a fact many people walk past without noticing. The Greenwich Meridian, the line of 0° longitude that the world uses to set its clocks and maps, passes through Ghana. It reaches the coast at Tema, running through the harbour area.⁶⁷

The shape of the land

Mostly low and gentle, with hills in the east

Ghana is not a mountainous country. No point rises above about 900 metres.¹ The simplest way to picture it is in three belts: the coastal zone, the forest region and the northern savanna.¹

The big feature in the middle is a wide, low basin, known as the Voltaian Basin, which is now largely filled by Lake Volta. Its edges rise into narrow plateaus with steep scarps. The best known are the Kwahu Scarp in the south and the Gambaga Scarp in the north.¹

The highest ground is in the east. The Akwapim-Togo Ranges run from the Togo border down to the sea just west of Accra. Ghana's three highest peaks are there: Mount Afadjato at 885 metres, Mount Djebobo at 876 metres and Mount Torogbani at 872 metres. Between those hills and the sea lie the gently rolling Accra Plains.¹

Rivers and lakes

One great river system, one man-made lake and one lake made by a meteorite

Most of Ghana drains into the Volta. The Black Volta, the White Volta and the Oti all feed it. South of the Kwahu Plateau, other rivers run straight to the sea instead, including the Pra, the Ankobra and the Tano. Many small lagoons line the coast where streams meet the ocean.¹

Lake Volta was created when the Akosombo Dam was completed in 1965. It covers about 8,500 square kilometres and is the largest artificial reservoir in the world by surface area.⁹¹

Lake Bosomtwe (also spelt Bosumtwi), south of Kumasi, is Ghana's only natural lake. It sits in a crater left by a meteorite that struck about one million years ago, and it has no river flowing out to the sea.¹⁸ The crater rim measures about 11 kilometres from north to south.⁸

Climate

Two winds decide when it rains

Ghana is warm all year. The average annual temperature is 26°C to 29°C, and the hottest months are usually February and March, just before the rains.¹

Rain is the real difference between places, and it comes down to two air masses. A warm, humid one blows in from the South Atlantic and brings rain. A hot, dry one blows down from the Sahara and brings the dusty wind we call the harmattan. Whichever is in charge decides whether it rains.¹

• The south gets two rainy seasons: a main one from April to July and a smaller one from September to November. It receives about 1,270 to 2,180 millimetres of rain a year.¹
• The north gets one rainy season, peaking in August and September, then a long dry season from November to March. It receives about 1,020 to 1,400 millimetres a year.¹
• The Accra Plains are an odd one out. They are unusually dry for the coast, with under 1,000 millimetres a year, and look more like the northern savanna than the forest.¹

Regions

Sixteen regions and their capitals

Ghana had ten regions until 2019. After referendums in December 2018, six new regions were created, bringing the total to sixteen.¹⁴ Each has a regional capital.⁵

Population

Thirty million people, and more of us in the cities

The 2021 census counted 30,832,019 people, five times the 6,726,815 counted in 1960. Women slightly outnumber men: 15,631,579 females to 15,200,440 males, although men outnumber women in six regions.²⁴

Greater Accra has now overtaken Ashanti as the most populous region.³ Greater Accra holds 17.7% of the population and Ashanti 17.6%, followed by Eastern at 9.5% and Central at 9.3%. Together, those four regions hold 54% of all Ghanaians.²

Ghana is now a mainly urban country. In 2021, 56.7% of people lived in urban areas, up from 50.9% in 2010. Greater Accra is 91.7% urban, while Upper East is the least urban region at 25.4%.²

We are also a young nation that is slowly getting older. The share of children aged 14 and under fell from 41.3% in 2000 to 35.3% in 2021, while young people aged 15 to 35 rose to 38.2%.² Only about 1% of residents are not Ghanaian, and 92% of them come from other ECOWAS countries.²

Ethnic groups

Many peoples, three big groups

The census groups Ghanaians into nine major ethnic groups. The three largest, Akan, Mole-Dagbani and Ewe, together make up 77% of the population.² The census sample gives this breakdown:¹⁰

Religion

A deeply religious country

According to the 2021 census, 71.3% of Ghanaians are Christian and 19.9% are Muslim. Another 3.2% follow African traditional religions, 4.5% follow other religions and just 1.1% say they have no religion.¹¹

Within Christianity, Pentecostal and Charismatic churches are now the largest group, at 31.6% of the whole population, ahead of the older Protestant churches at 17.4% and Catholics at 10.0%.¹¹ Urban areas have higher shares of Christians and Muslims, while traditional and other religions are more common in rural areas.²

Languages

One official language, dozens of mother tongues

English is Ghana's official language.¹⁵ At home and in the market, Ghanaians speak many more. Ethnologue, the standard catalogue of the world's languages, lists 73 living indigenous languages in Ghana, and nine of them are used in formal education.¹²

The Bureau of Ghana Languages, a government agency, promotes eleven of them in print: Akuapem Twi, Asante Twi, Mfantse (Fante), Ewe, Ga, Dangme, Nzema, Dagbani, Dagaare, Gonja and Kasem.¹³

The census tells us how people read and write. Among Ghanaians aged six and older, 69.8% are literate. Of those, a little over 96% can read and write English, and 52.8% can read and write at least one Ghanaian language. Nearly half of literate Ghanaians can read and write in two languages, almost always English plus a Ghanaian language.²

Quick recap

Five things to remember

1. BeltsCoast, forest and northern savannah shape Ghana's rain, crops and settlement.¹
2. 0°The Greenwich Meridian reaches the Ghanaian coast at Tema.⁶
3. LakesVolta is man-made and huge; Bosomtwe is natural and sits in a meteorite crater.⁹⁸
4. 30.8mPeople in 2021, most now in towns, with Greater Accra the largest region.²
5. LanguagesEnglish is official, alongside more than 70 Ghanaian languages.¹²