MyGhana2027.com · Languages of Ghana · Migrations
Almost no people in Ghana says it simply grew out of the ground where it lives. Nearly every tradition begins with a journey: across a river, out of a walled town, down from the savannah, over the sea. Some of these journeys were chosen. Others were forced. Together they made the country that celebrates seventy years of independence in 2027.
A word on dates. Most of this history comes from oral tradition, drum histories, linguistics and archaeology, not written records. The dates below are approximate, and historians and communities do not always agree. Where traditions differ, we say so.
People lived in what is now Ghana long before any of today's peoples took their present names. Stone tools across the country point to hunters and gatherers many thousands of years ago.
Near Kintampo, in today's Bono East Region, archaeologists found the remains of some of West Africa's earliest settled farming communities: villages, pottery, stone tools, domestic animals and the first traces of cultivated crops.
Iron working spread over the last two thousand years, making it easier to clear forest and farm. Trading towns grew where forest met savannah, such as Begho in the north-west, which became a gold market for traders from the Sahel.
When later peoples tell their arrival stories, the Guan are often already present: on the Accra plains, on the Akuapem ridge, along the Volta, on the coast at Winneba. Their scattered distribution today suggests an older population that later arrivals settled around and among.
Where the Akan came from is one of the great open questions of Ghanaian history. Many traditions point north, to the edge of the forest; others to the forest itself. What is clear is where they built their first states, and how far they spread.
Around Techiman, the Bono state is remembered as one of the earliest Akan kingdoms, close to the gold trade of Begho. Many Akan clans trace their roots there.
Akan groups moved south into the forest, clearing land for farms and gold workings. States such as Denkyira, Akwamu, Akyem, Adansi and the Fante states on the coast took shape.
Asante united around Kumasi and expanded its power north, east and south, absorbing and ruling many other peoples. Wars and conquests moved whole communities. The Asante Empire.
Akwamu conquered the Ga at Ayawaso in the 1680s, and after its own defeat in the 1730s its people moved east across the Volta. Movement after defeat is a pattern repeated across the region.
Mande-speaking Muslim merchants, called Wangara or Dyula, came south from the Mali empire in search of gold and kola. They settled in market towns like Begho, built mosques, and tied the region to the trans-Saharan trade. Their influence runs through the north: in Islam, in long-distance trade, and in the founding families of Gonja.
Horsemen remembered in the story of Tohazie, the Red Hunter, and his descendant Naa Gbewaa founded Mamprugu, Dagbon and Nanumba. They ruled over older farming peoples whose earth priests kept their authority over the land.
Mande cavalry under Ndewura Jakpa conquered the savannah between the Black and White Volta and founded Gonja. Within generations the rulers spoke the Guan language of the people they ruled.
Not every northern people lived under a king. The Kassena, Sisaala, Dagaaba, Talensi, Konkomba and others organised around clans, elders and shrines, and many resisted the kingdoms around them.
The peoples of today's Greater Accra and Volta regions both remember journeys from the east, across or along the Volta river.
Ga and Dangme traditions describe migrations from the east, possibly from the region of today's Benin and Nigeria, onto the Accra plains. The Dangme took refuge first in hills such as those at Shai; the Ga founded Ayawaso inland before moving to the coast. Ga & Dangme.
The Ewe came from Ketu, settled at Notsé in today's Togo, and fled the tyranny of King Agokoli by night, walking backwards to hide their tracks. They spread out to the coast and the Volta hills. Ewe · Hogbetsotso.
Not every migration in Ghana's history was chosen. For several centuries, the largest movement of people on this coast was the one out of it.
From the forts and castles of the Gold Coast, hundreds of thousands of captives were shipped across the Atlantic, taken from all over the interior and sold through African and European hands. Their descendants live across the Americas today. Forts and castles · Assin Manso.
In the 19th century, raiders such as Babatu attacked the Grusi and other northern peoples for captives, who were sold south through markets like Salaga. Villages fled, burned or were emptied. Pikworo slave camp.
Enslaved people were also held and worked inside the region, on plantations like the Danish estate at Frederiksgave and in households and farms. It is an uncomfortable history, and one Ghana rarely tells. Who sold whom.
Hausa caravans came south for kola, settled in the zongos of Ghana's towns, and made Hausa the common language of Muslim communities across the country. Hausa in Ghana.
Fulani herders moved south with their cattle over the last two centuries, especially in the 20th, and today live across the savannah and middle belt, often in tension with farming communities over land and water.
Freed Afro-Brazilian families sailed back across the Atlantic and settled in Jamestown, Accra, among the Ga. Their descendants still carry Portuguese names. Brazil House and the Tabom.
After Tetteh Quarshie brought cocoa to the Gold Coast, the farms of the forest drew workers from the north and from today's Burkina Faso, Togo, Niger and Nigeria. Gold mines at Obuasi and Tarkwa drew more.
In 1969 Ghana expelled hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals, many of them Nigerians who had lived in Ghana for generations. In 1983 Nigeria expelled Ghanaians in turn. Two expulsions, one story.
Since independence, the biggest migration has been internal: from the north and the countryside to Accra, Kumasi and Tema. Accra today is a city of many languages, and Twi is heard there more often than Ga.
The Year of Return in 2019 invited the descendants of the enslaved to come home, and some have settled. Ghana@70 in 2027 continues that story. Why the diaspora should visit in 2027.
One country, many journeys. Every Ghanaian language carries the memory of a movement. That is why it makes sense to read this page together with the languages themselves.
Updated and fact-checked: 13 October 2026. Dates before the 17th century are approximate and based on oral tradition, linguistics and archaeology. Origins of the Akan, Ga-Dangme and other peoples remain debated.