The Republic of Ghana is a nation in West Africa. It borders Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso in the north, Togo to the east, with the Gulf of Guinea on its southern coastline. Formerly the Gold Coast, the name Ghana is derived from the Ghana Empire (although its territory never reached present-day Ghana). West Africa is the region of western Africa generally considered to include these countries: Benin Burkina Faso Cameroon Côte dIvoire (Ivory Coast) Equatorial Guinea Gabon The Gambia Ghana Guinea Guinea-Bissau Liberia Mali Niger Nigeria Republic of the Congo (Congo-Brazzaville) Senegal Sierra Leone Togo Chad, Mauritania, and... Côte dIvoire (often called Ivory Coast in English; see below about the name) is a country in West Africa. ... Burkina Faso is a landlocked nation of western Africa. ... See also Togoville for the town formerly known as Togo The Togolese Republic is a country in West Africa, bordering Ghana in the west, Benin in the east and Burkina Faso in the north. ... The gigantic Gulf of Guinea is the part of the Atlantic southwest of Africa. ... This article resolves the various uses of the name Gold Coast. ... The Ghana Empire (existed c. ...

(In Detail) (Full size)
National motto: Freedom and Justice
Official language	English (official), Twi, Ewe, Dagbani, others
Capital and largest city	Accra
Capital's coordinates	5°33′ N 0°15′ W (http://kvaleberg.com/extensions/mapsources/index.php?params=5_33_N_0_15_W_)
President	John Agyekum Kufuor
Area  - Total  - % water	Ranked 77th 238,540 km² 3.5%
Population  - Total (Year)  - Density File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ... Flag ratio: 2:3 The flag of Ghana was adopted in 1957. ... Here is a list of state mottos for countries and their subdivisions around the world. ... File links The following pages link to this file: Ghana User:DanielZm/test Template:Ghana infobox ... An official language is something that is given a unique status in the countries, states, and other territories. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Twi (pronounced chwee) is a language spoken in Ghana by about 6 million people. ... Ewe (pronounced like ay-way) is a Niger-Congo language spoken in Ghana and Togo. ... Dagbani is a language spoken by some half million people in Ghana, where it is the most common language in the Northern regions. ... In politics a capital (also called capital city or political capital — although the latter phrase has an alternative meaning based on an alternative meaning of capital) is the principal city or town associated with its government. ... Accra, population 1,661,400 (2001), is the capital of Ghana. ... See Cartesian coordinate system or Coordinates (elementary mathematics) for a more elementary introduction to this topic. ... Prior to independence Ghana was the British Gold Coast colony. ... Categories: People stubs | 1938 births | Ghanaian people ... This article explains the meaning of area as a physical quantity. ... Here is a list of the countries of the world sorted by area. ... Square kilometre (US spelling: Square kilometer), symbol km², is an SI unit of surface area. ... In the most common sense of the word, a population is the collection of people—or organisms of a particular species—living in a given geographic area. ... Population density can be used as a measurement of any tangible item. ...	Ranked 50th 19,533,560 82/km² This is a list of sovereign states and other territories by population. ...
GDP (PPP)  - Total (Year)  - GDP/head In economics, the gross domestic product (GDP) is a measure of the amount of the economic production of a particular territory in financial capital terms during a specific time period. ... A year is the time between two recurrences of an event related to the orbit of the Earth around the Sun. ...	Ranked 73rd $41,250 million $2,000 You may be looking for: list of countries by GDP (nominal) - list based on current currency market exchange rates list of countries by GDP (PPP) - list based on purchasing power parity This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...
Currency	Cedi
Time zone	UTC, no (DST)
Independence	6 March 1957, from the United Kingdom
National anthem	"Hail the Name of Ghana"
Internet TLD	.gh
Calling Code	233

The cedi is the unit of currency of Ghana, Africa. ... -1... UTC also stands for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Coordinated Universal Time or UTC, also sometimes referred to as Zulu time, is an atomic realization of Universal Time or Greenwich mean time, the astronomical basis for civil time. ... Daylight saving time (also called DST, or Summer Time) is the portion of the year in which a regions local time is advanced by (usually) one hour from its standard official time. ... Independence is autonomous self-government of a country by its residents and indigenous population. ... March 6 is the 65th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (66th in Leap years). ... 1957 was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... The National Anthem is the name of a song by the band Radiohead. ... Lyrics for Hail the Name of Ghana, the national anthem of Ghana: God bless our homeland Ghana, And make our nation great and strong, Bold to defend for ever The cause of Freedom and of Right; Fill our hearts with true humility, Make us cherish fearless honesty, And help us... A top-level domain (TLD) is the last part of which Internet domain names consist of. ... .gh is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Ghana. ...

Name

Upon achieving independence from Great Britain, the name "Ghana" was chosen for the new nation—a reference to the Ghana Empire of earlier centuries. This name is mostly symbolic, as the ancient Empire of Ghana was located to the north and west of current-day Ghana. The name was adopted as a reference to the descendants of the ancient Empire of Ghana who migrated south and east and currently reside in Ghana. The Ghana Empire (existed c. ...

History

Main article: History of Ghana The history of Ghana before the last quarter of the 15th century is derived primarily from oral tradition that refers to migrations from the ancient kingdoms of the western Sahel—the area of present-day Mauritania and Mali. ...

Formed from the merger of the British colony of the Gold Coast and the British Togoland trust territory, Ghana in 1957 became the first "black" country in colonial Africa to gain its independence. In 1956 Sudan gained its independence, but it was actually considered "Arab," even though it is part of "Black Africa." Therefore, Sudan was actually the first to achieve independence from colonial powers, but Ghana is considered the first "black" African country to gain independence. A long series of coups resulted in the suspension of the constitution in 1981 and the banning of political parties. A new constitution, restoring multiparty politics, was approved in 1992. Gold Coast was a British colony on the Gulf of Guinea in west Africa. ... British Togoland was a League of Nations Mandate in Africa, formed by the splitting of German Togoland into French Togoland and British Togoland. ... 1957 was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ...

Politics

Main article: Politics of Ghana Government The Constitution that established the Fourth Republic provided a basic charter for republican democratic government. ...

Ghana is a republic within the Commonwealth of Nations. Its head of state is an elected president (currently John Agyekum Kufuor) with executive power. The Parliament of Ghana is unicameral and dominated by two main parties, the New Patriotic Party and National Democratic Congress. Kofi Annan, the current Secretary-General of the United Nations, is from Ghana. Flag of the Commonwealth of Nations The Commonwealth of Nations is a voluntary association of independent sovereign states, most of which were once governed by the United Kingdom and are its former colonies. ... Categories: People stubs | 1938 births | Ghanaian people ... Categories: Politics stubs | Liberal related stubs | Liberal parties | Ghanese political parties ... The National Democratic Congress is a political party in Ghana, founded by former president and dictator Jerry John Rawlings. ... Order: 7th Secretary-General Term of Office: January 1, 1997–present Predecessor: Boutros Boutros-Ghali Successor: incumbent Born: April 8, 1938 Place of birth: Kumasi, Ghana Died: Place of death: Kofi Atta Annan (born April 8, 1938) is the seventh and current Secretary-General of the United Nations. ... The United Nations, or UN, is an international organization made up of 191 states established in 1945. ...

Update: John Kufuor and the New Patriotic Party were recently re-elected in a decisive (53% to 44%) victory on December 7, 2004 Categories: People stubs | 1938 births | Ghanaian people ... Categories: Politics stubs | Liberal related stubs | Liberal parties | Ghanese political parties ... December 7 is the 341st day (342nd on leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ...

• List of Presidents of Ghana
• List of political parties in Ghana

Prior to independence Ghana was the British Gold Coast colony. ... A political party is a political organization subscribing to a certain ideology or formed around very special issues with the aim to participate in power, usually by participating in elections. ...

Economy

Main article: Economy of Ghana By West African standards, Ghana has a diverse and rich resource base. ...

Well endowed with natural resources, Ghana has twice the per capita output of the poorer countries in West Africa. Even so, Ghana remains heavily dependent on international financial and technical assistance. Gold, timber, and cocoa production are major sources of foreign exchange. West Africa is the region of western Africa generally considered to include these countries: Benin Burkina Faso Cameroon Côte dIvoire (Ivory Coast) Equatorial Guinea Gabon The Gambia Ghana Guinea Guinea-Bissau Liberia Mali Niger Nigeria Republic of the Congo (Congo-Brazzaville) Senegal Sierra Leone Togo Chad, Mauritania, and... General Name, Symbol, Number Gold, Au, 79 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 11 (IB), 6, d Density, Hardness 19300 kg/m3, 2. ... Timber Timber is a term used to describe clusters of trees. ... This article is about cocoa, the food. ...

The domestic economy continues to revolve around subsistence agriculture, which accounts for 40% of GDP and employs 60% of the work force, mainly small landholders. In 1995-97, Ghana made mixed progress under a three-year structural adjustment program in cooperation with the IMF. On the minus side, public sector wage increases and regional peacekeeping commitments have led to continued inflationary deficit financing, depreciation of the cedi, and rising public discontent with Ghana's austerity measures. In economics, the gross domestic product (GDP) is a measure of the amount of the economic production of a particular territory in financial capital terms during a specific time period. ... The flag of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is the international organization entrusted with overseeing global financial system‘s current trade account balances of member states. ... The cedi is the unit of currency of Ghana, Africa. ...

Regions

Main article: Regions of Ghana Ghana is divided into ten regions (capitals in parentheses)- Ashanti Region (Kumasi) Brong-Ahafo Region (Sunyani) Central Region (Cape Coast) Eastern Region (Koforidua) Greater Accra Region (Accra) Northern Region (Tamale) Upper East Region (Bolgatanga) Upper West Region (Wa) Volta Region (Ho) Western Region (Sekondi) Categories: Lists of subnational entities | Ghana...

Ghana is divided into 10 regions: A region can be any area that has some unifying feature. ...

Ashanti may refer to: The Ashanti people, an ethnic group Ashanti, a region of Ghana Ashanti Shaquoya Douglas, a singer HMS Ashanti, two Royal Navy warships This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Brong Ahafo Region lies in the mid-west of Ghana, between Ashanti Region and the Côte dIvoire Border. ... The Upper West Region of Ghana is located in the northwestern corner of the country and bordered by Burkina Faso to the north and west. ... The Western Region of Ghana includes the large cities of Sekondi and Takoradi on the coast, coastal Axim and a hilly inland area including Elubo, that reaches from the Côte dIvoire border in the west, to the Central Region in the east. ...

Geography

Main article: Geography of Ghana A map of Ghana, converted directly from a map in GIF format from the CIA World Factbook. ... Ghana is located on West Africas Gulf of Guinea only a few degrees north of the Equator. ...

Ghana is located on the Gulf of Guinea, only a few degrees north of the Equator. The coastline is mostly a low, sandy shore backed by plains and scrub and intersected by several rivers and streams. A tropical rain forest belt, broken by heavily forested hills and many streams and rivers, extends northward from the shore. North of this belt, the land is covered by low bush, park-like savanna, and grassy plains. The gigantic Gulf of Guinea is the part of the Atlantic southwest of Africa. ... In geography, the equator is an imaginary line drawn around a planet, halfway between the poles, where the surface of the roughly spherical planet is parallel to the axis of rotation. ...

The climate is tropical. The eastern coastal belt is warm and comparatively dry; the southwest corner, hot and humid; and the north, hot and dry. Lake Volta, the largest man-made lake in the world, extends through large portions of eastern Ghana. The tropics are the geographic region of the Earth centered on the equator and limited in latitude by the two tropics: the Tropic of Cancer in the north and the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere. ... Lake Volta is the second-largest artificial lake in the world, lying in Ghana and covering almost 8,500 km² (3,275 square miles). ...

The capital is Accra. Other cities include: Accra, population 1,661,400 (2001), is the capital of Ghana. ...

• Asamankese
• Bolgatanga
• Cape Coast
• Ho
• Kumasi
• Nsawam
• Takoradi
• Tamale
• Tarkwa
• Tema

Bolgatanga, colloquially known as Bolga, is a town in the Upper East region of Ghana. ... Cape Coast, or Cabo Corso, is the capital of the Central Region of Ghana, located by the Gulf of Guinea. ... Ho is a city in south east Ghana and is the capital of the Volta Region. ... Kumasi is the capital city of the Ashanti Region of Ghana. ... Sekondi-Takoradi, population 93,822 (1984), is the capital of the Western Region of Ghana. ... The bank in downtown Tamale (November 1999) Tamale (pronounced tah-mah-lee) is the capital of the Northern Region of Ghana, with about 350,000 people. ...

Culture

Perhaps the most visible (and most marketable) cultural contribution from modern Ghana is Kente cloth, which is widely recognized and valued for its colors and symbolism. Kente cloth is made by skilled Ghanaian weavers, and the major weaving centers in and around Kumasi (Bonwire is known as the home of Kente, though areas of Volta Region also lay claim to the title) are full of weavers throwing their shuttles back and forth as they make long strips of Kente. These strips can then be sewn together to form the larger wraps which are worn by some Ghanaians (chiefs especially) and are purchased by tourists in Accra and Kumasi. The colors and patterns of the Kente are carefully chosen by the weaver and the wearer. Each symbol woven into the cloth has a special meaning within Ghanaian culture. Kente cloth, known locally as nwentoma, is a type of fabric made of interwoven woven cloth strips and is native to the country of Ghana, where it was first developed in the 12th century. ... Kumasi is the capital city of the Ashanti Region of Ghana. ... The Adome bridge crosses the Volta river south of the Akosombo Dam Volta is a river in central and western Africa that drains into the Gulf of Guinea. ... Accra, population 1,661,400 (2001), is the capital of Ghana. ...

Kente is one of the symbols of the Ghanaian chieftaincy, which remains strong throughout the country, particularly in the areas populated by members of the culturally- and politically-dominant Ashanti tribe. The Ashanti's chief, known as the Asantehene, is perhaps the most revered individual in the central part of the country. Like other Ghanaian chiefs, he wears bright Kente, gold bracelets, rings and amulets, and is always accompanied by numerous ornate umbrellas (which are also a symbol of the chieftaincy itself). The most sacred symbol of the Ashanti people is the Golden Stool, a small golden throne in which the spirit of the people is said to reside. It is kept in safekeeping in Kumasi, the cultural capital of the Ashanti people and the seat of the Asantehene's palace. Though the chieftaincy across Ghana has been weakened by allegations of corruption and cooperation with colonial oppression, it remains a very vital institution in Ghana. The Ashanti (cf Asante) are a major ethnic group from Africa. ... An amulet from the Black Pullet grimoire An amulet (from Latin amuletum, meaning A means of protection) consists of any object intended to bring good luck and/or protection to its owner. ... This article is about royal thrones, for the order of angels by the same name see Thrones. ...

After Independence, the Ghanaian music scene flourished, particularly the up-tempo, danceable style known as high life, which is still played consistently at the local clubs and bars, often called spots. Many Ghanaians are adept drummers, and it is not unusual to hear djembes played at social events or performances. Highlife is a type of music that originated in Ghana near the end of the 19th century and spread to other West African English-speaking countries. ...

Miscellaneous topics

Traditional mud compound of Ghana

• Demographics of Ghana
• Communications in Ghana
• Transportation in Ghana
• Military of Ghana
• Foreign relations of Ghana
• Public Holidays in Ghana
• Music of Ghana
• Islam in Ghana
• List of writers from Ghana

Traditional mud compound in Northern Ghana. ... Traditional mud compound in Northern Ghana. ... Ghanas population is concentrated along the coast and in the principal cities of Accra and Kumasi. ... Telephones - main lines in use: 200,000 (1998 est. ... Railways: total: 953 km (undergoing major rehabilitation) narrow gauge: 953 km 1. ... Military branches: Army, Navy, Air Force, National Police Force, Palace Guard, Civil Defense Military manpower - military age: 18 years of age Military manpower - availability: males age 15-49: 5,045,355 (2002 est. ... Ghana is active in the United Nations and many of its specialized agencies, the World Trade Organization, the Nonaligned Movement, the Organization of African Unity (OAU), and the Economic Community of West African States. ... In addition to Christian holidays, Ghana celebrates Independence Day (6 March, )and Republic day (1 July), and National Liberation Day (24 Feburary). ... The most well-known form of Ghanaian music is highlife, which has become popular all across Africa and much of the rest of the world. ... About 16% of Ghanaians are Muslims. ... African Writers (by country): This is a list of literary figures from the African continent, listed by country, including poets, novelists, childrens writers, essayists, and scholars, listed by country. ...

External links

• Wiktionary entry for 'Ghana' (http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Ghana)
• GhanaWeb (http://www.ghanaweb.com/)
• AllAfrica.com - Ghana (http://allafrica.com/ghana/) news headline links
• BBC News Country Profile - Ghana (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/africa/country_profiles/1023355.stm)
• CIA World Factbook - Ghana (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/gh.html)
• Library of Congress Country Study - Ghana (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/ghtoc.html) data as of November 1994
• LookSmart - Ghana (http://search.looksmart.com/p/browse/us1/us317916/us559898/us559899/us10065674/us559918/) directory category
• Open Directory Project - Ghana (http://dmoz.org/Regional/Africa/Ghana/) directory category
• Yahoo! - Ghana (http://dir.yahoo.com/Regional/Countries/Ghana/) directory category