Ghana Ghana Ghana (), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located along the Gulf of Guinea and Atlantic Ocean, in the subregion of West Africa. Spanning a land mass of , Ghana is bordered by the Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, Togo in the east and the Gulf of Guinea and Atlantic Ocean in the south. "Ghana" means "Warrior King" in the Soninke language. The first permanent state in the territory of present-day Ghana dates back to the 11th century. Numerous kingdoms and empires emerged over the centuries, of which the most powerful was
Sub-Saharan Africa West and Central Africa), or sometimes extending from the coast of West Africa to Western Sudan. Its equivalent in Southeast Africa was "Zanj" ("Country of the Blacks"), which was situated in the vicinity of the Great Lakes region. The geographers drew an explicit ethnographic distinction between the Sudan region and its analogue Zanj, from the area to their extreme east on the Red Sea coast in the Horn of Africa. In modern-day Ethiopia and Eritrea was "Al-Habash" or Abyssinia, which was inhabited by the "Habash" or Abyssinians, who were the forebears of the Habesha. In northern Somalia was "Barbara" or