Accra

Accra is the capital city of Ghana. Ghana is a country in West Africa.

Accra is next to the sea. Its streets are full of shops, buses and people.

Accra is the capital of Ghana, on the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa. The city has spread far beyond its old center, so its people are counted in several districts. At the 2021 census, the Greater Accra Region, which includes Accra and nearby towns such as Tema, had 5,455,692 people. The Accra Metropolitan district, at the heart of the old city, had 284,124.

Accra is the home of Ghana's government and of large universities, and it has an international airport.

Accra's population is hard to give as one number, because the built-up city now spreads across many districts. Ghana's 2021 census counted 5,455,692 people in the Greater Accra Region, up from 4,010,054 in 2010. The old Accra Metropolitan district was split into several new municipal districts after 2010; the remaining Accra Metropolitan district had 284,124 people in 2021. At the 2010 census, the urban locality of Accra, including Teshie and Nungua, had 2,070,463.

Universalis describes Accra as carrying out the main political, administrative and cultural roles of a national capital, with Kotoka International Airport. For a long time the city was mainly an outlet for export crops such as cocoa; much of the industry, and the port, grew at Tema, about 20 km to the east.

Long ago, people from far away built forts by Accra's beach. They came to trade.

Three of these old forts are still there today.

Between 1650 and 1680, European traders built three forts on the shore at Accra: James Fort by the English, a fort by the Dutch that became Ussher Fort, and Christiansborg Castle at Osu by the Danes. Neighborhoods grew up around each one.

The forts are part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site that includes 3 castles and 15 forts along Ghana's coast. They were first used for the gold trade. Later they played a large part in the trade in enslaved people, and UNESCO calls them a monument to the evils of that trade.

Universalis dates Accra's three forts to between 1650 and 1680: Fort James, built by the English, Fort Crèvecœur by the Dutch (later Ussher Fort), and Christiansborg Castle by the Danes, each built to protect a European trading post and each the nucleus of a district, James Town, Ussher Town and Osu.

UNESCO's property, inscribed in 1979, groups 3 castles (Cape Coast, Elmina and Christiansborg at Osu) and 15 forts, including Ussher and James in Accra, built between 1482 and 1786 along about 500 km of coast. Traders from Portugal, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Holland, Germany and Britain built and occupied them at different times. UNESCO calls them a monument both to the evils of the slave trade and to centuries of earlier Afro-European commerce, and the starting point of the African Diaspora. James Fort, once a prison, is now in the care of the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board.

A big round road goes around the older part of Accra.

Airplanes fly in and out of Accra's big airport. Ships come to a port nearby.

A very long circular road, the Ring Road, was built around Accra's older government and home districts. As the city grew, new neighborhoods spread out more than ten kilometers from the coast.

Accra's international airport is called Kotoka International Airport. The port of Tema, about 20 kilometers to the east at the end of the railway, grew into the center of Ghana's economy.

Universalis describes the colonial plan's long circular boulevard, the Ring Road, which bounded the first administrative and residential districts, and the later growth of the city more than 10 km inland, alternating planned estates such as Cantonments and Kaneshie with neighborhoods that grew up without a formal plan.

The city's air link is Kotoka International Airport, about 7 km north of Osu Castle. For a long time Accra was mainly an outlet for export crops such as cocoa, brought by rail from the growing regions; Universalis describes the port of Tema, about 20 km to the east, where the railway ends, as having become Ghana's economic center, and lists its textile, steel, engineering, pharmaceutical, cement, timber and brewing industries.

Some families in Accra catch fish in the sea, as people here have done for a long time.

Big universities in Accra teach many students.

Universalis describes James Town, the old district by the port, as a place where many fishermen lived. In the photo above, colorful umbrellas shade street sellers in a busy shopping area.

As Accra grew, it reached two important places of learning that began outside the city: Achimota and the University of Ghana at Legon, founded in 1948. The old forts are places of learning too: Ussher Fort has been restored as a museum and documentary center.

Universalis names James Town, near the port, as the old urban core where large groups of fishermen still lived when it was written, and describes the mix of planned estates and unplanned neighborhoods that make up the later city. The built-up area has reached the two great intellectual centers of Achimota and the University of Ghana at Legon (1948), both first set up outside the city.

Heritage is part of daily life in the old districts. UNESCO reports that James Fort is no longer used as a prison and has been handed to the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board, and that Ghana has inaugurated the rehabilitated Ussher Fort as a museum and documentary center about the slave trade.