Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It extends the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Sea to the south, sharing borders with the Ivory Shore in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, as well as Togo in the eastern.

Ghana covers a location of 238,535 km2 (92,099 sq mi), extending diverse biomes that vary from coastal savannas to tropical rain forests. With over 31 million people, Ghana is the second-most populous country in West Africa, after Nigeria. The resources as well as largest city is Accra; various other major cities are Kumasi, Tamale, as well as Sekondi-Takoradi.

The first long-term state in present-day Ghana was the Bono state of the 11th century. Many kingdoms and realms arised over the centuries, of which the most effective were the Kingdom of Dagbon in the north as well as the Ashanti Realm in the south. Beginning in the 15th century, the Portuguese Realm, complied with by various other European powers, objected to the location for trading legal rights, until the British eventually established control of the shore by the late 19th century.

Following over a century of emigration, Ghana’s current borders took shape, incorporating 4 separate British colonial areas: Gold Coastline, Ashanti, the Northern Territories as well as British Togoland. These were linked as an independent dominance within the Commonwealth of Nations on 6 March 1957, coming to be the very first swarm in sub-Saharan Africa to accomplish sovereignty. Ghana consequently ended up being significant in decolonisation initiatives as well as the Pan-African movement.

Ghana is a multinational state, residence to a selection of ethnic, etymological and also spiritual groups; while the Akan are the largest ethnic group, they comprise just a plurality. The vast majority of Ghanaians are Christian (71.3%), with near a fifth being Muslim and also a tenth practicing traditional faiths or reporting no religious beliefs.

Ghana is a unitary constitutional democracy led by a president who is both president and also head of government. Given that 1993, it has maintained one of the freest and most secure governments on the continent, as well as does reasonably well in metrics of health care, economic growth, as well as human growth.

 Ghana as a result enjoys considerable impact in West Africa, and also is highly integrated in worldwide events, being a member of the Non-Aligned Activity, the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Group of 24 (G24) as well as the Commonwealth of Nations.