history of Ghana

The topic history of Ghana is discussed in the following articles:

major treatment

  • TITLE: Ghana
    SECTION: History

African Cup of Nations

  • TITLE: African Cup of Nations (football competition)
    ...Egypt defeated the host nation in the final to win the Abdel Aziz Abdallah Salem Trophy, named after its donor, an Egyptian who was the first CAF president. That trophy was permanently awarded to Ghana in 1978 when it became the first country to win the tournament three times. The next trophy, known as the African Unity Cup, was awarded permanently to Cameroon in 2000 when that team claimed...


  • TITLE: Akwamu (historical state, Africa)
    ...coasts of western Africa. At its apogee in the early 18th century, it stretched more than 250 miles (400 km) along the coast from Whydah (now Ouidah, Benin) in the east to beyond Winneba (now in Ghana) in the west.

Asante empire

  • TITLE: Asante empire (historical empire, Africa)
    West African state that occupied what is now southern Ghana in the 18th and 19th centuries. Extending from the Comoé River in the west to the Togo Mountains in the east, the Asante empire was active in the slave trade in the 18th century and unsuccessfully resisted British penetration in the 19th.


  • TITLE: Bono (historical state, Africa)
    Akan state of western Africa from the 15th to the 18th century, located between the forests of Guinea and the savannas of the Sudan in what is now Brong-Ahafo region in the Republic of Ghana.

British West Africa

  • TITLE: British West Africa (historical states, Africa)
    Parts of the Gold Coast (present Ghana) were acquired by Britain at different times. The Gold Coast crown colony, on the Gulf of Guinea coast, was established in 1874 in Fante and Ga lands near the British coastal trading forts. The mighty Asante empire to the north was conquered and made a protectorate in 1900–01. The far north, too, became a protectorate. Sir Gordon Guggisberg, who...

Fante confederacy

  • TITLE: Fante confederacy (African history [late 17th century-1824])
    historical group of states in what is now southern Ghana. It originated in the late 17th century when Fante people from overpopulated Mankessim, northeast of Cape Coast, settled vacant areas nearby. The resulting Fante kingdoms formed a confederacy headed by a high king (the brafo) and a high priest. It extended from the Pra River in the west to the Ga region (centred on Accra) in the...

Ghana (hist. kingdom)


  • TITLE: 20th-century international relations (politics)
    SECTION: Great Britain and decolonization
    ...most of which had little relevance to real conditions in primitive countries that had no natural boundaries, no ethnic unity or sense of nationalism, and no civic tradition. When the Gold Coast (Ghana) elected the radical leader Kwame Nkrumah, who then demanded immediate independence and got it in 1957, the British felt unable to deny similar grants to neighbouring colonies. Britain had, in...

Mossi states

  • TITLE: Mossi states (historical empire, Africa)


  • TITLE: Togo
    SECTION: United Nations trusteeship
    ...Coast (although in the southern districts of Ho and Kpandu the Ewe vote showed a two-to-one majority in favour of continued British trusteeship). The Gold Coast and Togoland together were renamed Ghana and achieved independence in 1957.


western Africa

  • TITLE: western Africa (region, Africa)
    SECTION: Claims of territorial boundaries
    ...was entrusted to Britain to be administered together with the Gold Coast and Nigeria respectively. Ultimately British Togo chose to join with the Gold Coast and so became part of the new independent Ghana. The northern part of British Cameroon similarly joined with Nigeria, but the southern part chose instead to federate with the former French Cameroon.