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Ghana

country in West Africa

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 26, 2026
Entity authorityQ117 ↗
Source-derived summary

Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It is situated with the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, and shares borders with Ivory Coast to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, and Togo to the east. Ghana covers an area of 239,567 km2 (92,497 sq mi), spanning various ecologies, from coastal savannas to tropical rainforests. With over 35 million inhabitants, Ghana is the thirteenth-most populous country in Africa, and the second-most populous country in West Africa. The capital and most populous city is Accra.

The earliest kingdoms to emerge in Ghana were Bonoman in the south and the Kingdom of Dagbon in the north, with Bonoman existing in the area during the 11th century. The Asante Empire and other Akan kingdoms in the south emerged over the centuries. Beginning in the 15th century, the Portuguese Empire, followed by other European powers, contested the area for trading rights, until the British ultimately established control of the coast by the 19th century. Following more than a century of colonial resistance, the later borders of the country took shape, encompassing four separate British colonial territories: Gold Coast, Ashanti, the Northern Territories, and British Togoland. These were unified as an independent dominion within the Commonwealth of Nations.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Ghana” is country in West Africa. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Ghana, country and West, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current 213-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1957-01-01. For this dossier, Ghana, country and West is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “country in West Africa” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q117. VIAF identifies the subject as 159421741. The Library of Congress control number is n80061117. Authority coordinates are 7.947, -1.023. 2 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Ghana”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Ghana primary sources, Ghana archive and Ghana research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Ghana”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Ghana” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.