Ghana-Net.com · Greater Accra Region · Capital
Accra is not a beautiful city and we are not going to tell you it is. It is hot, loud, congested and it floods. It also holds five European forts within a few kilometres of shoreline, the ground where independence was declared, a statue a mob beheaded, a market the state once dynamited, and an unmarked mass grave beneath a castle courtyard where every president worked until 2013. Almost none of it is on the standard tour.
Most visitors land at Accra International Airport, sleep one night in Osu or East Legon, take a half-day city tour, and leave for Cape Coast or Kumasi in the morning. They come away thinking Accra is somewhere you pass through.
Given what the standard half-day covers, that is a reasonable conclusion. It is also wrong.
The problem is not the city. The problem is that Accra's best material pays nobody a commission. A tour operator earns from a craft market, a restaurant, a beach resort. Nobody earns from a locked Portuguese lodge on a Jamestown side street, from the forecourt of the Supreme Court, or from a government building opposite the Memorial Park that has never had a plaque on it. So those things get skipped, and because they are skipped nobody maintains them, and because nobody maintains them they get skipped.
Everything on this page links to a full page on this site, most written from first-hand visits over more than two decades, and none of it written to sell you anything. Where a site is closed, difficult or not what the official literature claims, we say so.
Capital of the Republic of Ghana and of the Greater Accra Region. Founded by the Ga; Ga Mashie — Jamestown and Ussher Town — is the old town.
English is official. Ga and Twi are what you will actually hear. A greeting in either is received far more warmly than it deserves.
November to March. Avoid June, which is when the city floods — and it does so almost every year.
Two full days minimum. Three if you want the forts properly. Most people give it half of one.
Ghana has moved its seat of government three times since independence and every building involved still stands within a few kilometres of the others. Walk them in order and you have the political history of the country in an afternoon.
The mausoleum and museum, on the old polo grounds where Nkrumah declared independence in 1957 — ground the British had reserved for Europeans, which is exactly why he chose it. The beheaded statue is displayed a few steps from its recovered head, deliberately kept apart. Give it a proper hour.
Independence was formally handed over inside this building. Three republics sat here and soldiers ended all three. Nkrumah's statue stood outside until a crowd tore the head off in 1966 — and that head came back forty-three years later, returned by an elderly woman who had kept it. Tens of thousands photograph the Park every year and almost none turn round.
A Danish slave castle that became the seat of independent Ghana. Every president from Nkrumah until 2013 worked above sealed dungeons — and above a lower courtyard where more than three hundred enslaved people lie in unmarked ground, recorded in the Danish records as buried "to manure the ground." Two government bodies publish different opening times. Telephone first.
The presidential palace, shaped like an Asante stool, whose name changes with the government and whose final cost has never been established in the public record. Closed to visitors — thirty seconds from Liberation Road is all you get, and that is worth knowing before you plan around it.
On air since 1935, and the first building seized in every attempt to take the country. In 1966 soldiers captured it before dawn and announced Nkrumah's overthrow from its studios. In 1967 a lieutenant took it, made his announcement, played a pop song, then drove off to ask his girlfriend whether she'd recognised his voice. He was executed three weeks later.
The public gallery is open Tuesday to Friday when the House sits — free, with identification, no advance permission needed. One of very few Accra institutions that genuinely welcomes visitors, and almost nobody takes it up.
Three High Court judges and a retired army major, taken from their homes during curfew in 1982 and shot on the Accra Plains. Their busts stand in the forecourt of the Supreme Court. On no tour, anywhere — and the reason 30 June is Martyrs' Day.
Independence Square — the national parade ground, and among the largest public squares anywhere. Empty and baking on an ordinary day; extraordinary on 6 March. The Black Star Gate stands at its edge and is the most photographed structure in Ghana.
The Ohene Djan Stadium, and the site of the worst football disaster in African history. On 9 May 2001, 127 people came to watch a league match and did not go home. There are memorial statues at the front entrance and almost no visitor knows why.
A day that works. Nkrumah Memorial Park first thing, properly, with a guide. Turn round and look at Old Parliament House. Walk to Black Star Square and the Gate. National Museum in the afternoon, and the Supreme Court memorial afterwards if you want to close the circle. Everything within a small radius — which in Accra traffic is worth more than any single sight on the list.
Ask any Accra operator for a forts itinerary and you will be offered Cape Coast and Elmina, three hours west. Accra's own forts pay nobody a commission, so they are skipped — which leaves something genuinely unusual sitting in plain sight.
Portuguese, Dutch, Danish, English, and one fortified compound built and run by a Euro-African family, all within a few kilometres of urban shoreline. Most are free. You will very likely have them to yourself.
The walk, in order — what is open, what is locked, where you need a local guide, and honest warnings for each. Half a day on foot with a taxi in the middle. No operator sells it.
The English fort that gave Jamestown its name, and a working prison within living memory — Nkrumah was among those held here. Best seen as part of the neighbourhood rather than as a standalone site.
Dutch Fort Crèvecœur, built within sight of the English position because neither would concede the anchorage — and the Ga dealt with both. Later a prison, and where Nkrumah actually ran the CPP from a cell in 1950–51. Not James Fort, as most accounts say.
The first European trading post in the Accra area, predating Osu Castle and everything else here. Many Ghanaians who grew up in this city have never heard of it. Expect a building on a street rather than a site.
A fortified slave-trading compound run by a Euro-African family — built four to six years after Denmark abolished the trade. A documented tunnel runs from here to the dungeons of Osu Castle. If you have already done Cape Coast and want the version that is true and not simple, this is the building.
The sixth, out east, and the one to think carefully about. Not signposted, the approach runs through dense residential streets, and you need someone local who knows both the route and the people on it. You pass the ruins of a destroyed chief's palace on the way. A separate outing, not an add-on.
Fort Vernon at Prampram is the seventh, further east and largely ruined. And the full national picture is on our Forts & Castles of Ghana hub.
Jamestown and Ussher Town are the original Accra, and the best half-day in the city. This is not a heritage precinct — it is a dense, working fishing community with its own life, and the forts make far more sense seen as part of it than as sites.
The view over Ga Mashie and the fishing beach. Climb it, then spend time in the neighbourhood below rather than photographing it from above. See also our Greater Accra lighthouses.
The Ga funerary carpentry tradition — coffins shaped as fish, aeroplanes, cocoa pods, sewing machines. A working craft in working workshops, not a gallery. Ask before photographing anyone at work.
The Ga harvest festival — the most important thing in the Ga year, and the reason Accra empties into the old town for a week. Worth timing a visit around. It is also the festival during which the British shelled these towns in 1854.
Accra's street art festival, out at Gbawe — a side of the city's culture that never appears in the itineraries.
Take a community guide in Ga Mashie. Not for safety — for access, for permission, and because a Jamestown guide earns from your visit while an outside operator does not. Ask at the lighthouse or through a community organisation.
The parts of Accra that are not monuments. These are places where people are working, and you are a visitor rather than a customer.
Loud, hot, crowded past comfort, and the commercial heart of Ghana. Dynamited by soldiers of its own government in 1979 after the market women were blamed for the economy — and fighting demolition orders again in 2026. Closed shoes, small notes, ask before photographing.
The Arts Centre. Craft, fabric, carving and drums, aimed squarely at visitors — which makes it easier than Makola and considerably less interesting. Bargain, and expect to.
The other craft market, near the Tetteh Quarshie interchange — named for the man who brought cocoa to Ghana and changed the country's economy permanently.
Nkrumah's purpose-built city on a grid, drawn by Ghana's first architect — and ten minutes inland, the unplanned town of 200,000 built by the people who worked in it. Two visions of independence side by side, and the whole story of the last seventy years laid out on the ground.
The white curved modernist landmark, and an actual working venue rather than a photograph. Check what is on rather than just standing outside it.
The quickest way to understand Accra before you arrive, and the best company while you plan. Ghanaian stations streaming live, free, from wherever you are.
Where the wrecked Nkrumah statue was kept for years after 1975. Underfunded, under-visited, and worth your entrance fee precisely because of that.
Ask your guide about it and watch the confusion. It is almost never on an itinerary, which is its own recommendation if you like finding things nobody else has.
The Accra home and resting place of W. E. B. Du Bois, who took Ghanaian citizenship and died here in 1963 — the night before the March on Washington. The single most important pan-African site in the city.
Commonwealth war graves in the middle of the city — West African soldiers who fought in wars that were not theirs. Kept, quiet, and almost empty of visitors.
The earthquake that flattened much of Accra and Ga Mashie, killed and injured hundreds, and reshaped where and how the city was rebuilt. Barely remembered, and it explains more about Accra's layout than anything else on this page.
Every museum in the country, with what is actually open. See also GhanaMuseums.com, our dedicated site on heritage sites and the condition they are in.
What is actually swimmable, what is not, and where the rip currents are. This coast kills people every year. Read the page before you get in the water anywhere along it.
The closest thing to a safari to Accra — baboons, antelope, zebra, ancestral caves and hilltop views, an hour up the Akosombo road. The obvious day out that most visitors never hear about.
In the Achimota Forest, part of which was controversially declassified in recent years — a long-running argument about what the city is allowed to build on.
Between Accra and Tema, a Ramsar-listed wetland with real birdlife — and a reminder of the ecology the whole eastern corridor was built on top of.
Up the Akuapem ridge, and the standard escape from the heat — cooler air, old trees, and the woodcarvers' road on the way. Under an hour from the city when the traffic allows.
Nkrumah's other great project, and the reason Tema Harbour exists. A long day trip from Accra, and best combined with the Adomi Bridge.
Three sites are promoted as Accra attractions and do not function as attractions. Read this before you spend a morning and a taxi fare finding out.
Where President John Evans Atta Mills is buried. Promoted as a site of national significance; not open in any way a visitor would recognise. Read the page before travelling to it.
Beside Asomdwe Park, listed as public green space, and in the same condition. The two are usually promoted together and neither functions.
Central, listed, and considerably harder to get into than a public park ought to be. Check before going.
Why we publish this. Ghana's official tourism sites list these places without qualification. We would rather you spent the morning at Shai Hills or in Jamestown than standing at a locked gate wondering whether you got the address wrong. If you find any of them open and functioning, tell us and we will update the page the same day.
Ride-hailing apps work and are simplest for visitors. Taxis are fine if you agree the fare before getting in. Trotros are the real transport of the city — cheap and bewildering; take one with a Ghanaian companion first. See Public Transport in Ghana.
Roughly 6.30–9.30 in the morning and 16.00–19.30 in the evening the city does not move. Plan around it rather than through it, and never schedule a meeting and a flight on the same afternoon.
Supply is not continuous everywhere and parts of the metro area have gone months with dry taps. Any decent accommodation has storage tanks and a generator — ask before booking rather than discovering it at six in the morning.
Accra floods, and has done almost every year since 1935. If a heavy downpour starts, get off the road and stay off it — drains overflow within minutes and vehicles get carried.
Cash and mobile money run the city. Cards work in hotels and larger restaurants and essentially nowhere else. Carry small notes, and pay the foreigner entry rate without complaint — those institutions need it.
Ask before photographing people, every time, and accept a refusal without arguing. Never photograph military or police personnel, government building perimeters, the port, or the presidential palace security cordon.
Ghana ETA and e-Visa · Flights to and from Ghana. A yellow fever certificate is required and is checked on arrival — it takes ten days to become valid, so it cannot be fixed at the airport.
You will be asked what day you were born, and then given a name. It is not small talk — it is how Ghanaians place you. See Ghanaian names by day of birth.
Use an organised tour for the ground you cannot easily walk — Independence Square, the Memorial Park, the palace drive-past — and for a driver who knows the traffic. Then do Makola, the forts and the judicial quarter independently with what is on this site. An arrival transfer booked in advance removes the single most stressful part of landing in Accra.
Bookings through this widget earn us a commission at no extra cost to you. We have no arrangement with any individual operator and no operator has paid to appear on this page. No tour we know of covers the Accra forts, the judicial quarter, or Tema and Ashaiman — which is precisely why we document them.
Practical details last verified . Accra is the capital of the Republic of Ghana and of the Greater Accra Region, founded by the Ga; the old town of Ga Mashie comprises Jamestown and Ussher Town. Site descriptions, opening conditions and access notes reflect first-hand visits and reporting over more than two decades and are sourced in detail on the individual pages linked above. Opening arrangements, access and site conditions in Accra change frequently and without notice — verify anything time-critical locally before travelling, and note that in at least one case, Osu Castle, two different government bodies publish different opening times. Ghana Museums and Monuments Board, 2 Barnes Road, Adabraka: +233 302 221633 or 221635. Flood history reflects recorded events since 1935. Where we describe a promoted attraction as not functioning, that is our own observation and we invite correction. All photography © Remo Kurka. Usage strictly by prior authorisation only.
