Gold Coast

Gold Coast, a British crown colony on the Gulf of Guinea, with an area of 15,000 square miles, or including protectorates, 46,600 square miles, and a population of 1,475,000 (of whom only 150 are Europeans). It extends from 5° W. to 2° E. long., between the Slave Coast and the Ivory Coast, has a coast-line of some 350 miles, and reaches inland to Ashanti (beyond the Prah), in which (at Kumasi) there is, since 1895, a British resident. Its shores are low and swampy, and very difficult of approach owing to the heavy surf. From the lagoons of the coast the country rises gradually towards the interior, and is furrowed by numerous small streams. The principal exports are palm kernels and oil, india-rubber, gold-dust, ivory, and monkey skins; but cocoa-nuts, copra, coffee, Calabar beans, corn, ground-nuts, Guinea grains, ginger, cam-wood, gum copal, tobacco, and porcupine quills are also produced. The climate on the coast is very unhealthy, but is better inland. The negro inhabitants are largely under the management of their own chiefs. The exports and imports have each an annual value of £600,000 or £700,000. The chief towns are Accra, Elmina, and Cape Coast Castle. The whole of the district geographically known as Gold Coast is British, except the French settlements of Grand Bassam, Assinie, Grand Lahou, and Jackville. German Togoland is on the Slave Coast. See Ellis, History of the Gold Coast (1893), and Lucas, Historical Geography of the British Colonies, Vol. III. (1895).