Introduction

Ghana is situated on the southern coast of the West African bulge and is bordered to the east by Togo, to the west by the Ivory Coast, to the south by the Atlantic Ocean and to the north and northwest by Burkina Fasso.

The coastline consists mostly of a low sandy, foreshore behind which stretches the coastal plain, except in the west where the forest comes down to the sea. The forest belt, which extends northward from the western coast and then eastward into Ashanti for about 170 miles, is broken up into heavily wooded hills and steep ridges. North of the forest is undulating savanna drained by the Black Volta and White Volta rivers, which join and flow south to the sea through a narrow gap in the hills. Ghana's highest point is 2,9000 feet in a range of hills on the eastern border. Apart from the Volta, only the Pra and the Ankobra rivers permanently pierce the sand dunes, most of the other rivers terminate in brackish lagoons. There are no natural harbours.