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50 free Ghana trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Ghana trivia quiz covers the first sub-Saharan colony to win independence: the Asante Empire and its Golden Stool, the slave castles of Elmina and Cape Coast, Kwame Nkrumah's Pan-African republic, the coups and Jerry Rawlings, and the peaceful elections of the Fourth Republic. It also takes in what Ghana gives the world, from cocoa and gold to kente and Adinkra, highlife and hiplife, jollof and fufu, Kofi Annan and the Black Stars who came within a handball of a World Cup semi-final. The first questions suit anyone who has seen the black star on the flag; the last ones test people who know why the country is named after an empire hundreds of miles away and where the canopy walkway is. Every question is multiple choice with a short explanation after you answer. Every answer has been checked against a primary source, and each question links to the page that confirms it.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the capital and most populous city of Ghana?
Accra
Accra, on the Atlantic coast, has a metropolitan population of roughly 4 million and became the colonial capital in 1877, when the British moved their administration there from Cape Coast.
Q 02On 6 March 1957 Ghana became the first colony in sub-Saharan Africa to do what?
Achieve sovereignty
Achieve sovereignty: at midnight on 6 March 1957 the colony became an independent dominion within the Commonwealth, merging the coastal colony, Ashanti, the Northern Territories and the trust territory to its east into one state.
Q 03By what name was Ghana known as a British colony?
Gold Coast
Gold Coast: the British colony took its name from the gold trade that drew European traders and forts to the coast from the 15th century; the name Ghana was borrowed at independence from a medieval Sahel empire.
Q 04Who led Ghana to independence and served as its first prime minister and president?
Kwame Nkrumah
Kwame Nkrumah founded the Convention People's Party in 1949 under the slogan 'Self-Government Now', led the country to independence in 1957 and was overthrown by a coup in February 1966.
Q 05The title Kaya Maghan, held by rulers of the empire Ghana is named after, is thought to mean what?
Ruler of gold
Ruler of gold: Kaya Maghan, the Soninke title of the kings of Wagadu, reflected the empire's control of the gold trade between the 3rd and 12th centuries, far to the north-west of modern Ghana.
Q 06The black star on Ghana's flag symbolises what?
African emancipation and unity against colonialism
African emancipation and unity against colonialism: Theodosia Okoh's 1957 design put the black 'lodestar of African freedom' on the gold band; red stands for the blood of those who died for independence and green for its forests and farms.
Q 07Which club based in Kumasi is Ghana's most successful, with more than 20 league titles?
Asante Kotoko
Asante Kotoko, founded in Kumasi in 1935, has won the Ghanaian league more than 20 times and the African Cup of Champions Clubs twice, in 1970 and 1983.
Q 08Whose goal-line handball denied Ghana a late winner in the 2010 World Cup quarter-finals?
Luis Suárez
Luis Suárez punched Dominic Adiyiah's header off the line in the last minute of extra time and was sent off; Asamoah Gyan hit the bar with the penalty and Uruguay won the shoot-out 4-2.
Q 09How many Africa Cup of Nations titles did Ghana win between 1963 and 1982?
Four
Four: Ghana won in 1963, 1965, 1978 and 1982, the last on penalties against hosts Libya in Tripoli, and later lost finals in 1992, 2010 and 2015.
Q 10Which farmer is credited with founding Ghana's cocoa industry at Mampong, Akuapem, in 1879?
Tetteh Quarshie
Tetteh Quarshie, a blacksmith, brought cocoa seeds back from the Spanish island of Fernando Po (Bioko) and in 1879 planted the first successful farm at Mampong in the Akuapem hills, founding Ghana's cocoa industry.
Q 11Ghana overtook which country to become the continent's largest gold producer?
South Africa
It produced about 140 tonnes in 2019, seventh in the world.
Q 12Lake Volta, formed by the Akosombo Dam, holds what world record?
Largest reservoir by surface area
Largest reservoir by surface area: Lake Volta covers about 8,502 square kilometres, some 3.6% of Ghana's land, and ranks third among reservoirs by volume; the Akosombo Dam was completed in 1965.
Q 13The Asante Golden Stool is said to have fallen from the sky onto the lap of which first king?
Osei Tutu
Q 21Jerry Rawlings, who ruled Ghana in 1979 and from 1981 to 2001, came to power holding what military rank?
Flight lieutenant
Flight lieutenant: Rawlings kept the junior air force rank through both his coups (1979 and 1981) and his years as head of state, before winning the 1992 election that launched the Fourth Republic.
Q 22The 1966 coup that overthrew Ghana's first president was code-named what?
Operation Cold Chop
Operation Cold Chop: on 24 February 1966, while the president was abroad en route to Hanoi, Colonel Emmanuel Kotoka and Major Akwasi Afrifa led army units into the capital and set up the National Liberation Council.
Q 23Ghana's currency is called what?
Cedi
Osei Tutu, the first Asantehene, is said to have received the stool from the sky through the priest Okomfo Anokye around 1701, the act that bound the chiefdoms around Kumasi into the Asante Empire.
Q 14The 1900 War of the Golden Stool began after Governor Frederick Hodgson demanded what?
To sit on it
To sit on it: Hodgson's demand to sit on the sacred stool, which even Asante kings never sat on, so outraged the Asante that they rose in the 1900 war and besieged the British fort in Kumasi.
Q 15Yaa Asantewaa, who commanded the Asante in the 1900 war against the British, held which position?
Queen Mother of Ejisu
Queen Mother of Ejisu: Yaa Asantewaa, about 60 years old, rallied the chiefs when they hesitated, led the siege of the British fort in Kumasi, and was exiled to the Seychelles after the defeat, dying there in 1921.
Q 16Elmina Castle, begun by the Portuguese in 1482, holds what distinction?
Oldest European building in sub-Saharan Africa
Oldest European building in sub-Saharan Africa: the Portuguese built São Jorge da Mina from 1482 to guard the gold trade; the Dutch seized it in 1637 and held it until selling it to Britain in 1872.
Q 17Which nation's company first built Cape Coast Castle as a timber fort in 1653?
Sweden
Sweden: the Swedish Africa Company raised the first timber fort in 1653 and named it Carolusborg after King Charles X Gustav; the Danes, Dutch and finally the British (1664) later held the site.
Q 18By Asante tradition, kente cloth originated in which town?
Bonwire
Bonwire, a village near Kumasi, is the traditional home of Asante kente weaving; its narrow strips, woven on horizontal looms and sewn together, were once reserved for the Asantehene and his court.
Q 19Adinkra symbols, printed on cloth once reserved for royalty, each derive their meaning from what?
A proverb or historical event
A proverb or historical event: each adinkra symbol encodes a saying or concept, such as Gye Nyame ('except for God') or Sankofa, the bird looking back to fetch what was left behind.
Q 20Ghanaian diplomat Kofi Annan served as which secretary-general of the United Nations?
Seventh
Seventh: Kofi Annan followed Boutros Boutros-Ghali in 1997, served two terms to the end of 2006 and shared the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize with the United Nations.
Cedi: the name comes from a local word for the cowry shell, once used as money; the currency was redenominated in 2007, with 10,000 old cedis becoming one Ghana cedi.
Q 24Ghana lies on which body of water?
Gulf of Guinea
Gulf of Guinea: Ghana's roughly 540-kilometre coastline faces this arm of the Atlantic, while on land it borders Ivory Coast to the west, Burkina Faso to the north and Togo to the east.
Q 25The Prime Meridian passes through which Ghanaian port town, near the capital?
Tema
Tema, Ghana's main container port about 25 kilometres east of the capital, sits almost exactly on 0° longitude, which makes Ghana the nearest country to the point where the Prime Meridian meets the Equator.
Q 26Which is the largest ethnic group in Ghana, at about 47% of the population?
Akan
The Asante are the best-known Akan people; the Mole-Dagbani are second at about 18%.
Q 27Roughly what share of Ghanaians are Christian?
71%
71%: the 2021 census counted 71.3% of Ghanaians as Christian, with Pentecostal and charismatic churches the largest bloc, and about a fifth as Muslim, concentrated in the north.
Q 28Highlife, Ghana's guitar-and-horn dance genre, first emerged in which part of the country?
Ghana's coastal cities
Ghana's coastal cities: highlife grew out of brass-band and palm-wine music around Cape Coast, Sekondi and the capital in the early 20th century, and E. T. Mensah's dance bands carried it across the region in the 1950s.
Q 29The trickster Anansi of Ghanaian folklore is most commonly depicted as what creature?
A spider
A spider: Anansi's name is the Twi word for spider, and his tales crossed the Atlantic with enslaved people to become the Anancy stories of Jamaica and the wider Caribbean.
Q 30Ghana's highest point, Mount Afadja, rises to about what height?
885 m
885 m: Mount Afadja, in the Agumatsa hills of the Akwapim-Togo Range near the Togo border in the Volta Region, is modest by continental standards but the highest point in Ghana.