Cape Coast

Port and capital of Central Region, Ghana, 130 km/80 mi west of Accra; population (1998 est) 89,800. In 1962 it was superseded as the main port by Tema. The town is built on a natural breakwater on the Gulf of Guinea, adjoining Cape Coast Castle. It exports cocoa, palm oil and kernels, coconuts, citrus fruits, corn, and cassava, and is a fishing port, exporting frozen fish. It is the site of Ghana's earliest university, the University of Cape Coast.

The town was first an Ashanti trading post which was then ruled successively by the Portuguese, Swedes, Dutch, and British (from 1644), before Ghana's independence in 1957. It was an important slave depot, and the capital of the British colony of Gold Coast until 1876, when the capital was transferred to Accra.