The region now known as Ghana was first discovered by Portuguese traders in the fifteenth century.
It became known as the Gold Coast because of the rich gold trade that flourished there. Later, this region was the source of many of the slaves brought to America.
In 1902, Britain created the Gold Coast Colony by joining together coastal settlements in the region with an inland kingdom known as Ashanti. Half of the former German colony of Togoland was then added to the Gold Coast.
In 1957, the Gold Coast became the first black African colony to be granted independence after World War II. The new nation was called Ghana. Ghana was the name of an empire that covered parts of the present-day nations of Mauritania and Mali more than a thousand years ago.
According to most historians, the region that now forms the nation of Ghana was never part of the old Empire of Ghana!
