Gold Coast (region)

Gold Coast
Flag Gold Coast Emblem
Gold Coast location in red
Status	The Multinational State of the Republic of Ghana
Demonym	Gold Coastian (Ghanaian)
Area
• Total	238,535 km2 (92,099 sq mi)
Population
• Estimate	about 25,366,462
Time zone	GMT (UTC+0)
• Summer (DST)	GMT (UTC+0)

The Gold Coast is the gold rich region that is now the nation of Ghana on the petroleum sweet crude oil and natural gas rich Gulf of Guinea in West Africa, Africa.

The Gold Coast, Slave Coast, Pepper Coast (or Grain Coast) and Ivory Coast were named after the main export resources there.

Early uses of the term Gold Coast refer literally to the coast and not the interior. It was not until the 19th century that the term came to refer to areas that are far from the coast.

The Gold Coast was to the east of the Ivory Coast and to the west of the Slave Coast.

Gold Coast region territorial entities were:

Ghana is the legal name for the Gold Coast region comprising the following four separate parts, which immediately before independence enjoyed distinct constitutional positions:

The Gold Coast Governors-General responsible for shepherding through the Gold Coast independence legislation Charles Arden-Clarke Lord Listowel explained that the name was chosen "in accordance with the wishes of the Gold Coastian population".

Gold Coast was first colonized by the Portuguese, with settlement in 1482 of the Portuguese Gold Coast. In 1642 this became part of the Dutch Gold Coast, which had been colonized by the Dutch since 1598. The Dutch stayed in the region until 1871, when the last of their settlements were taken over by the British Gold Coast.