Accra & the Coast

Before Europeans arrived, the coast was divided among small states: the Ga-speaking towns around Accra, the Fante kingdoms of the centre, and the Ahanta and Nzema in the west. Gold from the forest interior drew the Portuguese, who built São Jorge da Mina at Elmina in 1482 and Fort San Antonio at Axim in the early 16th century. The Dutch took Elmina in 1637, and English, Danish, Swedish and Brandenburger companies followed with forts of their own, until dozens of them stood along a few hundred kilometres of shore.

From the 17th century the trade turned from gold to people. Captives from the interior, many sold through Asante and other inland states, were held in the dungeons of Cape Coast, Elmina and the smaller forts before being shipped to the Americas; the castles' cells, chapels built directly above them and the "Door of No Return" record that trade plainly. Britain abolished its slave trade in 1807, but the coast remained a contested field of European and African power. Cape Coast served as the British capital until the seat of government moved to Accra in 1877, and the Dutch sold their forts to Britain in 1872.

In the 20th century Accra grew into the colony's commercial centre, and the 1948 shooting of ex-servicemen marching on Christiansborg Castle sparked the riots that sped up independence. Kwame Nkrumah, born in Nkroful in the Western Region, declared independence in Accra in 1957. Since the late 2000s offshore oil fields off the Western Region have brought new money and new arguments to Takoradi.

Accra is Ga country in origin, and the Ga still celebrate Homowo each August — the name means "hooting at hunger" — with processions, the sprinkling of kpokpoi on the ground for the ancestors, and family reunions. Teshie and Nungua have their own versions, and Teshie is known for the figurative coffins of its carpenters, shaped as fish, cars, cocoa pods or anything that marked the deceased's life. Today, however, the capital is a mix of every Ghanaian group, and Twi and English are its everyday languages alongside Ga.

West of Accra the coast is largely Fante, an Akan people with their own dialect and a military tradition in the Asafo companies, whose appliqué flags carry proverbs and rivalries between wards. Fishing towns hold large annual festivals: Winneba's Aboakyer deer hunt, Cape Coast's Fetu Afahye and Elmina's Bakatue, which opens the fishing season on the lagoon. In the far west, the Nzema and Ahanta keep their own languages and chieftaincies, and the Sefwi of Western North are an Akan people of the forest.

Christianity is dominant, with Methodist and Catholic churches dating from missionary schools on the coast, and Cape Coast's old secondary schools remain a matter of intense loyalty. The castles carry a particular weight for visitors from the African diaspora, and ceremonies of return are held there.

Greater Accra has over five million people, stretching from the old core of Jamestown and Osu out to Tema, the port and industrial town built in the 1950s and 60s, and to fast-growing suburbs along the roads north and east. Sekondi-Takoradi, the twin city of the Western Region, is the second urban centre on the coast, with Ghana's first deep-water harbour at Takoradi. Cape Coast is a university and school town, and Winneba, Elmina, Axim and Shama are fishing towns.

The economy is a mix of government, trade, finance and services in Accra; offshore oil and gas, mining, rubber and palm oil in the west; cocoa and timber in Western North; and fishing all along the shore, where canoe crews launch before dawn and women smoke and sell the catch. Illegal small-scale gold mining, known as galamsey, has muddied rivers such as the Ankobra and the Pra and is a constant political issue.

Accra days start early to beat the traffic and end late in the bars of Osu and Labadi. Coastal erosion, flooding in the rainy season, the price of fuel and the fortunes of fishing are the constant talk.

The coast lives on maize and fish. Kenkey, fermented maize dough steamed in leaves, comes in two styles: Ga kenkey, wrapped in maize husks, and Fante kenkey, wrapped in plantain leaves. Both are eaten with fried or smoked fish, raw pepper sauce and shito, the dark chilli-and-dried-fish oil. Banku, a sour maize-and-cassava dough, goes with grilled tilapia or okro soup, and kpokpoi, steamed maize meal with palm-nut soup, is the Ga festival dish of Homowo.

Fante cooking favours palm-nut soup and fish stews, and fante fante, a palm-oil stew, is a coastal favourite. Smoked herring and anchovies from the coastal ovens are sold across Ghana. Accra has the country's widest restaurant scene, from roadside waakye and kelewele stands at night to Lebanese, Nigerian, Chinese and international kitchens, and the Osu and East Legon districts are its grazing streets.

Coconuts are sold from carts along the beaches, sobolo and fresh juices fill the coolers, and palm wine is tapped in the western villages.

Accra rewards a few days. Jamestown has the lighthouse, the old British fort and a busy fishing harbour; nearby are Makola market, the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park and Mausoleum, Independence Arch and Black Star Square, and the W. E. B. Du Bois Centre. Labadi and Kokrobite are the city's beaches, and the Shai Hills reserve and Ada, at the mouth of the Volta, are easy trips.

The Central Region is the heart of the fort coast. Cape Coast Castle holds a museum and the dungeons where captives were held, and Elmina Castle, with Fort St Jago on the hill opposite, stands over a harbour of painted canoes; both are part of the UNESCO World Heritage listing of Ghana's forts and castles, and the smaller Fort Amsterdam at Abandze and the Assin Manso slave river site inland extend the story. Kakum National Park, north of Cape Coast, is known for its canopy walkway, a series of suspension bridges strung between the treetops of the rainforest.

Further west, Takoradi is the gateway to the Western Region's beaches. Busua has a long sandy beach, with Fort Metal Cross at Dixcove just along the shore, and Axim sits below Fort San Antonio. Beyond them are the stilt village of Nzulezo on Lake Tadane, Nkrumah's birthplace at Nkroful and the rainforest of Ankasa near the Ivorian border.