1.
Ghana
–
Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a unitary presidential constitutional democracy, located along the Gulf of Guinea and Atlantic Ocean, in the subregion of West Africa. Spanning a land mass of 238,535 km², Ghana is bordered by the Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, Togo in the east, Ghana means Warrior King in the Soninke language. The territory of present-day Ghana has been inhabited for a millennium, numerous kingdoms and empires emerged over the centuries, of which the most powerful was the Kingdom of Ashanti. Beginning in the 15th century, numerous European powers contested the area for trading rights, following over a century of native resistance, Ghanas current borders were established by the 1900s as the British Gold Coast. On 6 March 1957, it became the first sub-Saharan African nation to become independent of European colonisation, a multicultural nation, Ghana has a population of approximately 27 million, spanning a variety of ethnic, linguistic and religious groups. Five percent of the population practices traditional faiths,71. 2% adhere to Christianity and 17. 6% are Muslim and its diverse geography and ecology ranges from coastal savannahs to tropical jungles. Ghana is a country led by a president who is both head of state and head of the government. Ghanas economy is one of the strongest and most diversified in Africa, following a century of relative stability. Ghanas growing economic prosperity and democratic political system have made it a power in West Africa. It is a member of the Non-Aligned Movement, the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States, Group of 24, Ghana was already recognized as one of the great kingdoms in Bilad el-Sudan by the ninth century. Ghana was inhabited in the Middle Ages and the Age of Discovery by a number of ancient predominantly Akan kingdoms in the Southern and this included the Ashanti Empire, the Akwamu, the Bonoman, the Denkyira, and the Mankessim Kingdom. Until the 11th century, the majority of modern Ghanas territorial area was unoccupied and uninhabited by humans. Although the area of present-day Ghana in West Africa has experienced many population movements, by the early 11th century, the Akans were firmly established in the Akan state called Bonoman, for which the Brong-Ahafo Region is named. From the 13th century, Akans emerged from what is believed to have been the Bonoman area, to create several Akan states of Ghana and these states included Bonoman, Ashanti, Denkyira, Mankessim Kingdom, and Akwamu Eastern region. By the 19th century, the territory of the part of Ghana was included in the Kingdom of Ashanti. The Kingdom of Ashanti government operated first as a loose network, prior to Akan contact with Europeans, the Akan Ashanti people created an advanced economy based on principally gold and gold bar commodities then traded with the states of Africa. The earliest known kingdoms to emerge in modern Ghana were the Mole-Dagbani states, the Mole-Dagombas came on horseback from present-day Burkina Faso under a single leader, Naa Gbewaa. The death of Naa Gbewaa caused civil war among his children, some of whom broke off and founded separate states including Dagbon, Mamprugu, Mossi, Nanumba, Akan trade with European states began after contact with Portuguese in the 15th century
Ghana
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1925 map of pre–existing Ghana
Ghana
Ghana
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16th – 17th century
Akan Terracotta,
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Ghana
–
A 1850 map showing the
Akan Kingdom of Ashanti within the
Guinea region and surrounding regions in West Africa.
2.
Burkina Faso
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Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in Africa around 274,200 square kilometres in size. It is surrounded by six countries, Mali to the north, Niger to the east, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the south, in 2014 its population was estimated at just over 17.3 million. Burkina Faso is a country and French is an official language of government. Formerly called the Republic of Upper Volta, the country was renamed Burkina Faso on 4 August 1984 by then-President Thomas Sankara, residents of Burkina Faso are known as Burkinabé. Before the conquest of what is now Burkina Faso by the French, after gaining independence from France in 1960, the country underwent many governmental changes. Blaise Compaoré was the most recent president and ruled the country from 1987 until he was ousted from power by the popular youth upheaval of 31 October 2014 and this resulted in a semi-presidential republic which lasted from October 2014 to September 2015. On 17 September 2015 the provisional government was in turn toppled by an apparent military coup carried out by the Regiment of Presidential Security. On 24 September 2015, after pressure from the African Union, ECOWAS, and the forces, the military junta agreed to step down. Formerly called the Republic of Upper Volta, the country was renamed Burkina Faso on 4 August 1984 by then-President Thomas Sankara, the bé suffix added onto Burkina to form the demonym Burkinabé comes from the Fula language and means men or women. The northwestern part of todays Burkina Faso was populated by hunter-gatherers between 14,000 and 5000 BC and their tools, including scrapers, chisels and arrowheads, were discovered in 1973 through archeological excavations. Agricultural settlements were established between 3600 and 2600 BC, the Bura culture was an Iron-Age civilization centered in the southwest portion of modern-day Niger and in the southeast part of contemporary Burkina Faso. Iron industry, in smelting and forging for tools and weapons, had developed in Sub-Saharan Africa by 1200 BC, historians began to debate about the exact dates when Burkina Fasos many ethnic groups arrived to the area. During the Middle Ages the Mossi established several kingdoms including those of Tenkodogo, Yatenga, Zandoma. Sometime between 1328 and 1338 Mossi warriors raided Timbuktu but the Mossi were defeated by Sonni Ali of Songhai at the Battle of Kobi in Mali in 1483, during the early 16th century the Songhai conducted many slave raids into what is today Burkina Faso. During the 18th century the Gwiriko Empire was established at Bobo Dioulasso and ethnic groups such as the Dyan, Lobi, starting in the early 1890s a series of British, French and German military officers made attempts to claim parts of what is today Burkina Faso. At times these colonialists and their armies fought the local peoples, at times they forged alliances with them, the colonialist officers and their home governments also made treaties amongst themselves. Through a complex series of events what is Burkina Faso eventually became a French protectorate in 1896, the eastern and western regions, where a standoff against the forces of the powerful ruler Samori Ture complicated the situation, came under French occupation in 1897. By 1898, the majority of the corresponding to Burkina Faso was nominally conquered, however
Burkina Faso
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The cavalry of the
Mossi Kingdoms were experts at raiding deep into enemy territory, even against the formidable
Mali Empire.
Burkina Faso
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Flag
Burkina Faso
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Resistance to the French invasion at
Bobo-Dioulasso in 1892.
Burkina Faso
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The capital,
Ouagadougou, in 1930
3.
Volta River
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The Volta River is a river, primarily flowing in Volta Region and Dagbon in the Northern Region of Ghana, that drains into the Atlantic Ocean at the Gulf of Guinea in Ada. It has three main tributaries—the Black Volta, White Volta and Red Volta, Lake Volta is a reservoir impounded by the Akosombo Dam on the lower Volta River in southern Ghana. It is one of the largest reservoirs in the world and it extends from the Akosombo Dam in southeastern Ghana to the town of Yapei in Dagbon, some 400 kilometres to the north. The reservoirs dam generates electricity for the Volta River Authority, and it may be a resource for irrigation and fish farming. The depth of the river is 45 feet below Lake Volta, the Volta River is crossed by the Adome Bridge below the Akosombo Dam and the reservoir. The Volta River was named by Portuguese gold traders in Ghana and it was their farthest extent of exploration before returning. River of return or “river of bend, ” in reference to its course, impacts of the Akosombo Hydroelectric Project — environmental and human health issues from the Akosombo Dam and Lake Volta
Volta River
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The
Adome Bridge crosses the Volta river south of the
Akosombo Dam.
4.
Lake Volta
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Lake Volta is a large reservoir contained behind the Akosombo Dam. It is completely within the country of Ghana and has an area of 8,502 square kilometres. Lake Volta lies along the Greenwich meridian, and just six degrees of latitude north of the Equator, the lakes northernmost point is close to the town of Yapei, and its southernmost extreme is at the Akosombo Dam,520 km downstream from Yapei. Akosombo Dam holds back both the White Volta River and the Black Volta River, which formerly converged where the middle of the reservoir now lies, the present Volta River flows from the outlets of the dams powerhouse and spillways to the Atlantic Ocean in southern Ghana. The main islands within the lake are Dodi, Dwarf, digya National Park lies on part of the lakes western shore. The lake is formed by the Akosombo Dam, which was conceived by the geologist Albert Ernest Kitson in 1915. Because of the formation of Lake Volta, about 78,000 people were relocated to new towns and villages, about 120 buildings were destroyed, not including small residences, as over 3,000 square miles of territory were flooded. The Akosombo Dam provides electricity for much of the country, as well as for export to Togo, Benin, Lake Volta is also important for transportation, providing a waterway for both ferries and cargo watercraft. Since the huge lake lies in an area, the water remains warm year-round naturally. Given good management, Lake Volta is the location of a vast population of fish, the lake also attracts tourism, and tourist cruises visit the island of Dodi. Recent developments include a large-scale enterprise to harvest submerged timber from the forests under Lake Volta. An estimated 7,000 -10,000 child slaves work in the industry on Lake Volta. Lake Kariba, the worlds largest reservoir by volume Lake Volta & Akosombo on Ghanaweb. com
Lake Volta
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Space Imaging view of Lake Volta from the
International Space Station in
Space, by
NASA.
Lake Volta
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Panorama and
landscape of Lake Volta in
Ghana: Lake Volta is the largest
reservoir by surface area in the
world.
Lake Volta
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A ferry on Lake Volta.
Lake Volta
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Photograph of Lake Volta.
5.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
Geographic coordinate system
–
Longitude lines are perpendicular and latitude lines are parallel to the equator.
6.
Tributary
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A tributary or affluent is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or main stem river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean, tributaries and the main stem river drain the surrounding drainage basin of its surface water and groundwater, leading the water out into an ocean. A confluence, where two or more bodies of water together, usually refers to the joining of tributaries. The opposite to a tributary is a distributary, a river or stream that branches off from, distributaries are most often found in river deltas. Right tributary and left tributary are terms stating the orientation of the relative to the flow of the main stem river. These terms are defined from the perspective of looking downstream, where tributaries have the same name as the river into which they feed, they are called forks. These are typically designated by compass direction, for example, the American River receives flow from its North, Middle, and South forks. The Chicago Rivers North Branch has the East, West, and Middle Fork, the South Branch has its South Fork, forks are sometimes designated as right or left. Here, the handedness is from the point of view of an observer facing upstream, for instance, Steer Creek has a left tributary which is called Right Fork Steer Creek. Tributaries are sometimes listed starting with those nearest to the source of the river, the Strahler Stream Order examines the arrangement of tributaries in a hierarchy of first, second, third, and higher orders, with the first-order tributary being typically the least in size. For example, a second-order tributary would be the result of two or more first-order tributaries combining to form the second-order tributary, another method is to list tributaries from mouth to source, in the form of a tree structure, stored as a tree data structure
Tributary
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Biała Lądecka, a right tributary of Nysa Kłodzka in Poland, located in the village of
Bielice in
Lower Silesia.
Tributary
–
The
Pfinz, a right tributary of the
Rhine, located in
Baden-Württemberg.
Tributary
–
Walton Creek, a small tributary of the
Lochsa River in
northeastern Idaho, flowing slightly
upstream of its confluence with a larger stream.
Tributary
–
In Norway, the river
Glomma meets its main tributary
Vorma.
7.
Birim River
–
The Birim River is one of the main tributaries of the Pra River in Ghana and the countrys most important diamond-producing area, flowing through most of the width of the Eastern region. The river rises in the east of the Atewa Range, flows north through the gap between this range and the Kwahu Plateau, then runs roughly south-west until it joins the Pra. It gives its name to the Birimian rock formation, which yields most of the gold in the region, Ghana is the second largest producer of gold in Africa. The Birim River basin lies in the Man Shield area of the West African craton, the Birimian rocks include Akwatian formations, named after the town of Akwatia in the Birim valley, which have yielded more than 100,000,000 carats of diamonds. The great majority of the diamonds are found in Harzburgitic rocks, the river rises in the Kibi or Akim district of the Eastern Region of Ghana, in the Atewa Range, which rises to 780m. The surrounding lowlands are about 180-200m above sea level, much of the Atewa range is a forest reserve, with large areas of primary forest holding many rare plant, animal and insect species despite persistent timber poaching. There are many unstudied archeological sites, the Kibi area has 1500–2000mm of rain annually. The Birim basin is in the wet zone of Ghana. There are two seasons, one from May to June and the second from September to October. In the drier seasons, temperatures are around 26 °C in August and 30 °C in March, relative humidity is 70% - 80% throughout the year. At one time covered by tropical forest, large areas have been cleared for farming. Managed plantations are being introduced and may help to reverse the decline, below Akwatia the river holds high levels of silt from the mining operations. The Birim basin is rich in minerals and has been a source of gold for centuries, the basis for the name of Ghana. It is also a source of diamonds. Starting in the late 19th century, British gold mining companies adopted conventional mining and extraction processes, after independence in 1957 the government nationalized the gold mining industry. With inadequate investment, the deteriorated and profitability fell. However, after privatization in 1992 the new owners injected capital, mostly into the Ashanti belt mines, the Ashanti Belt now has an aggregated gold endowment of over 125,000,000 ounces of gold. Ghana has produced gems from alluvial gravels since the 1920s, mostly industrial grade, in the early 1990s the government announced plans to privatize its diamond-mining operations but found no buyers
Birim River
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Gold mask from the treasure of the
Ashanti king Kofi Kolkalli
Birim River
–
Pra River and major tributaries, including the Birim
Birim River
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Palm oil production in Jukwa, Ghana
8.
Oti River
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The Oti River or Pendjari River is an international river in West-Central Africa. It rises in Burkino Faso, flows through Benin and Togo, the Oti River is about 520 km long. Its headwaters are in Burkina Faso, it flows through Benin and Togo, tributaries on the left bank in Togo originate from the Togo Mountains to the south. One of its tributaries is the Kara River, the confluence being on the Togo/Ghana border, where another tributary joins from the south. The mouth of the Oti was formerly on the Volta River, the river crosses the northern part of Togo in a savannah-clad valley some 40 or 50 km wide. Along the margins of the river is gallery forest which floods periodically, the dry season here lasts from about November until April, with the hot dry Harmattan wind blowing from the north. At this time of the year the flow is minimal. Both the Oti and the Koumongou have floodplains, some 10 and 4 km wide respectively and these flood extensively during the wet season, but during the dry season they become dry, dusty plains, with the occasional pond or lake in a depression. Cattle graze on the floodplains during the dry season, there is also some small scale growing of crops, and the hunting of game takes place there. The river forms part of the borders between Ghana, Burkina Faso, Togo, and Benin. The Oti River flows through Pendjari National Park in Benin and the Oti-Kéran National Park in Togo
Oti River
–
Oti River in
Pendjari National Park,
Benin
