Accra
Ghana's capital on the Gulf of Guinea
Accra hums along the Gulf of Guinea coast, the capital and largest city of Ghana and one of West Africa's most confident urban centers. Its metropolitan area of close to three million blends the bustle of old fishing quarters and sprawling markets with a polished diplomatic and business district and a lively arts and music scene. Independence Square, with its great arch and black star, recalls the city's place at the front of African decolonization, while the surf, the street food and the open friendliness give Accra an easygoing reputation among the region's capitals.
The city sits on the low Accra plains, partly atop a modest coastal cliff that rises only eight to twelve meters above the Atlantic before flattening northward across a dry, grassy hinterland. The climate is hot and surprisingly arid for the tropics, shielded from the heaviest West African rains. Lagoons and the estuary of the Korle stretch behind the shore, and the old European trading forts still punctuate the coast, around which the original villages of Ga, Osu and James Town grew before merging into the modern city that now spreads well inland.
Accra coalesced in the seventeenth century around three fortified trading posts built by the Dutch, British and Danes among Ga villages, becoming the capital of the British Gold Coast in 1877. In 1957 it was the stage on which Kwame Nkrumah declared Ghana the first sub-Saharan colony to win independence, an event that reverberated across the continent. Today Accra is the seat of Ghanaian government and the country's commercial and cultural hub, a port city whose universities, recording studios and growing tech scene make it a magnet for the West African diaspora.