Ghana 2019

Yearbook 2019

Ghana. In September, the government announced that the country’s security forces had averted a coup attempt. The message came as a surprise in a country that in recent decades has been a stable democracy and considered a brilliant exception in another conflict-ravaged region. Three people were arrested after being supervised for 15 months. They were accused of having the goal of getting rid of the president and destabilizing the country. One of the arrested was said to be a doctor who used the hospital to hide a small number of weapons. The group should also have had some contact with military personnel. There seemed to be no serious risk of the coup being successful.

• ABBREVIATIONFINDER.ORG: Click to see the meanings of 3-letter acronym and abbreviation of GHA in general and in geography as Ghana in particular.

Another exception to the prevailing stability occurred in May, when more than 90 people were first arrested on suspicion of either planning or supporting the plans for a declaration of independence for an area in eastern Ghana. The new state would be called Western Togoland.

In March, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) made the final payment in a four-year long development program for Ghana, highlighting the country’s good economy with strong growth, falling government debt and moderate inflation.

Population 2019

According to CountryAAH, the population of Ghana in 2019 was 30,417,745, ranking number 46 in the world. The population growth rate was 2.190% yearly, and the population density was 133.6814 people per km².

When it ceased to belong to Great Britain in 1957, the country had fewer than 5,000,000 residents. According to an estimate just over half a century later, it amounted to 23,832,495 units. The significant increase is essentially due to very high birth rates (over 45 ‰) until the last decade of the 20th century, against a sharp decline in mortality rates. In 2009, the balance of natural movement was just under 2% (birth rate 28.5 ‰; death rate 9.4 ‰). At the dynamic demographic Ghana contributes greatly to the migratory movement, with alternating phases, now characterized by the prevalence of incoming flows from Sahelian countries, now from those in output (such as the wave of migration towards the Nigeria before 1983), now indents.

• The population is spread over the territory with an average density of 99 residents ^/km ², higher than that of the neighboring states. The distribution of the residents is very different in the various administrative units, since it goes from over 160 residents ^/ km ² in the Central Region to less than 30 in the immense Northern Region. Before the attainment of independence, the settlement was in absolute rural prevalence, although the urban phenomenon was certainly present, especially among the Ashanti populations, dedicated, in addition to agriculture, to crafts (metalworking) and to trade. In recent decades there has been an intense process of urbanization, which has mainly affected the coastal areas, but is manifesting itself, albeit to an extent lower, even in the rest of the country: the population classified as urban increased from 8% in 1921 to 50% in 2008. The capital, Accra (1,550,000 residents at the beginning of the 21st century, but about double in the urban agglomeration complex), already exploited in the period of the British administration, continued to fully perform its functions as a major central location after the achievement of independence, flanked (after 1962) by the port and industrial city of Tema, arisen just to the east.
• The Ghana is characterized by a rather articulated ethnic mosaic. The Akan (45.3% of the total, according to the 2000 census) are a group of Sudanese origin settled in the western and south-western areas of the country. To the east, the Ewe group (11.7%) is divided between Ghana and Togo; finally, to the north, voltaic populations prevail, partly descendants of the ancient kingdoms of Sudan and strongly Islamized.
• The official language is English. As for religion, Christians are almost 70% (for one seventh Catholics), Muslims, concentrated in the North, 15%; the others follow animist cults.