In general, however, the land is flat and covered with grass and scrub. To the west of Accra, the low plains contain wider valleys and rounded low hills, with occasional rocky headlands. Should this plan come to reality, much of the area could be opened to large-scale cultivation. A plan to irrigate the Accra Plains was announced in 1984. Practice because of the swampy nature of the very lowlying areas during the rainy seasons and the periodic blocking of the rivers at the coast by sandbars that form lagoons. Shifting cultivation is the usual agricultural The hills and slopes in this area are the favored lands for cultivation. The topography east of the city of Accra is marked by a succession of ridges and spoonshaped valleys. This coastal savanna, only about eight kilometers in width at its western end, stretchesĮastward through the Accra Plains, where it widens to more than eighty kilometers, and terminates at the southeastern corner of the country at the lower end of the Akwapim-Togo Ranges.Īlmost flat and featureless, the Accra Plains descend gradually to the gulf from a height of about 150 meters. A narrow strip of grassy and scrubby coast runs from a point near Takoradi in the west to the Togo border in the east. The low plains comprise the four subregions of the coastal savanna, the Volta Delta, the Accra Plains, and the Akan Lowlands. Because strong surf pounds the shoreline, two artificial harbors were built at Takoradi and Tema (the latter completed in 1961) to accommodate Ghana's shipping needs. Like most WestĪfrican countries, Ghana has no natural harbors. The fifth region, the high plains, occupies the northern and northwestern sector of the country. To their north lie three regions-the Ashanti Uplands, the Akwapim-Togo Ranges, and the Volta Basin. Low plains stretch across the southern part of the country. There are, nonetheless, five distinct geographical regions. The highest elevation in Ghana, Mount Afadjato in the Akwapim-Togo Ranges, rises only 880 meters above sea level. Indeed, the Precambrian rock system that underlies most of the nation has been worn down by erosion almost to a plain. Ghana is characterized in general by low physical relief. The Greenwich Meridian, which passes through London, also traverses the eastern part of Ghana at Tema. The distance across the widest part, between longitude 1 12' east and longitude 3 15' From here, the country extends inland for some 670 kilometers to about 11 north. Its southernmost coast at Cape Three Points is 4 30' north of the equator. With a total area of 238,533 square kilometers, Ghana is about the size of Britain. To the south are the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean. Ghana, which lies in the center of the West African coast, shares borders with the three French-speaking nations of Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Togo to the east, and Burkina Faso (Burkina, formerly Upper Volta) to the north.
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