The Volta

The Ewe trace their origins to Notsé, in present-day Togo, from which, according to their tradition, they escaped the tyranny of King Agokoli in the 17th century and scattered to found new settlements, including Anlo on the coast. The Anlo state around Keta and Anloga traded with European ships, and the Danes built Fort Prinzenstein at Keta in 1784. The lagoon towns were involved in the Atlantic slave trade.

By the late 19th century the coast around Keta was British, while the hills and the lands to the north were part of German Togoland. After the First World War the western part of Togoland, including Ho, Hohoe and the Oti lands, passed to Britain as a League of Nations mandate and later a UN trust territory. In a 1956 UN plebiscite the territory as a whole voted to join the Gold Coast, although a majority in the southern part voted against, leaving the Ewe divided between Ghana and Togo.

The Akosombo dam, completed in 1965, flooded the Volta valley to create Lake Volta and displaced tens of thousands of people, many of them from these regions. Keta has lost much of its town to the sea through coastal erosion, and sea defences have been built. In 2019 the Oti Region was created from the northern part of the Volta Region. A secessionist group campaigning for "Western Togoland" blocked roads and attacked police posts in 2020.

The Volta Region is largely Ewe, speaking Ewe dialects that continue across the border into Togo, while the Oti Region is home to the Guan, Nchumburu, Konkomba and other peoples, with Twi and English as common languages. The Ewe are patrilineal, unlike the matrilineal Akan, and their traditional religion, with shrines and vodu deities, coexists with strong churches, the first founded by German missionaries.

The great festival is Hogbetsotso, held by the Anlo at Anloga in November to commemorate the escape from Notsé, with a durbar of chiefs, drumming and dance. Other towns hold their own festivals, including Ho's Asogli Yam Festival. Ewe drumming and dance, such as agbadza and borborbor, are known across Ghana.

Ewe kente, woven at Agotime Kpetoe and traded at Agbozume market, is made of double-woven bands and is a tradition distinct from Asante kente. Crafts from the villages are sold at markets across the region.

Ho, the Volta Region's capital, is a university town set among hills, while Hohoe, Kpando, Keta, Aflao and Sogakope are the other main towns. Dambai is the capital of the Oti Region, with Nkwanta and Kete Krachi among its towns, and much of the population lives in farming villages.

The economy is farming: cocoa and coffee in the hills, yams and maize in Oti, and rice in the Volta flood plains. Fishing on Lake Volta and in the Keta lagoon employs many, and child labour in the lake fisheries has drawn national attention. Aflao lives off cross-border trade with Lomé.

Life moves between farm, church and market, with the market days rotating between towns. Coastal erosion around Keta and road quality in Oti are the standing local concerns.

The Ewe staple is akple, a smooth maize-flour dough, eaten with the hands and most often with fetri detsi, an okra soup, or with abɔbitadi, a herring stew. Abolo, a slightly sweet steamed maize dough, and yakayake, a steamed cassava dough, are eaten with the same soups and stews. Palm-nut soup and yam-based dishes are eaten across the region.

Fish from the lagoon and from Lake Volta is fried, smoked or cooked into stews, and soups draw on the vegetables grown across Ghana: okra, garden eggs, tomatoes, cocoyam leaves and groundnuts. In Oti, pounded yam and fufu are eaten as elsewhere in Ghana.

Palm wine is tapped along Lake Volta and in the south; because it ferments quickly, much of it is distilled into akpeteshie, a local gin. Sodabi, the same kind of palm spirit, is the name used across the border in Togo and Benin.

The highlands between Ho and the Togo border hold the region's best sights. The Wli Waterfalls, among Ghana's highest, drop from a forested escarpment into a pool reached by an easy walk from Wli village, with a steeper hike to the upper falls; fruit bats roost on the cliffs. Mount Afadjato, one of Ghana's highest mountains, is climbed from Gbledi or Liati Wote, and Tagbo Falls lies nearby.

Tafi Atome Monkey Sanctuary, between Ho and Hohoe, protects a patch of forest where mona monkeys, regarded as sacred, feed from visitors' hands. Ho itself has a small museum and serves as a base for Amedzofe, a hill village with views and a small waterfall, and for Mount Gemi.

On the coast, the Keta lagoon, Ghana's largest, attracts waterbirds, and Keta has the ruins of Fort Prinzenstein, with beaches along the sand bar to Anloga. Lake Volta stretches north along the region's western edge, with fishing towns and ferry crossings, and in the Oti Region the Kyabobo National Park protects hills and forest near the Togo border.