Ghana Country Info - Africa

Description and Basic Information

Ghana with its capital Accra is located in Africa (Western Africa, bordering the Gulf of Guinea). It covers some 239,461 square kilometres (slightly smaller than Oregon) with 23,382,000 citizens. English, Akan, Ewe and Twi are the languages commonly used by the people in Ghana (consider regional differences). Ivory Coast, Togo and Burkina Faso are bordering countries.

Ghana is in West Africa. It borders Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north and Togo to the east. There are two main seasons in Ghana, the wet and the dry seasons. Northern Ghana experiences its rainy season from March to November while the south, including the capital Accra, experiences the season from April to Mid-November. Among the sites equiped for tourists are the slave castles in coastal towns, including Cape Coast, Elmina and others. A Tro-Tro ride away from Accra is Kakum National Park, where you can walk the wood-and-rope bridges though the rainforest canopy. A wonderful experience, abeit a bit touristy. Prices have skyrocketed in recent years, but nonetheless it is a great opportunity to see some flora and fauna (if there are not too many tourists, you have a fairly good chance of seeing some monkeys in the trees).

Pictures from Capital (Accra)

Photos provided by Panoramio are under the copyright of their owners.

About Ghana

The landscape features mostly low plains with dissected plateau in south-central area. The average density of population is about 97 per km². The climate in Ghana can be described as tropical with warm and comparatively dry along southeast coast, hot and humid in southwest, hot and dry in north. Potential threats by nature are dry, dusty, northeastern harmattan winds occur from January to March or droughts.

To reach someone in Ghana dial +233 prior to a number. There are 267,400 installed telephones. And there are 15,109,000 registered mobile phones. The cellular networks operate on frequencies of 900 Mhz. Websites typically end with the top level domain ".gh". If you want to bring electric appliances (e.g. battery charger), keep in mind the local 230V - 50Hz. The following list are the 11 regions/states in Ghana we know off.

Demographic Statistics

In the year 2010, the total Ghanaian population grew at a rate of 1.86% (or by 451,504 citizens). With 217,355 deaths and 683,706 babies born, the natural increase rate lies at 1.92%. -14,847 persons more in total emmigrated from the country than immigrated.

An overview of age distribution in Ghana: Each pair of bars represents a single age group (male/female). Each group is spanning 5 years. E.g. 0 to 5 years, 5 to 10 etc. and group "0 to 5" being at the left end and "100 +" at the right end of the chart.

Based on content from wikitravel.org. The original article can be found here based on the work of these users.
Geographic information is based on the data provided by geonames.org, CIA factsbook and Unesco.