Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • A medieval African kingdom in what is now eastern Senegal, southwest Mali, and southern Mauritania. It was founded probably in the 8th century AD and prospered because of its location astride the trans-Saharan caravan routes. The kingdom declined after the 11th century.
  • A country of western Africa on the Gulf of Guinea. It was inhabited in precolonial times by a number of ancient kingdoms, including an inland Ashanti kingdom and various Fante states along the coast. Trade with European states flourished after contact with the Portuguese in the 1400s, and the British established a crown colony, Gold Coast, in 1874. Ghana became independent in 1957. Accra is the capital and the largest city.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • proper noun A country in Western Africa, bordering the North Atlantic Ocean, between Cote d'Ivoire and Togo, with Burkina Faso bordering on the north, with a population of 17,698,271 (July 1996 est), and a total area of 238,540 sq km. The government is a constitutional democracy, and the capital city is Accra.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun A country in Western Africa. Official name: The Republic of Ghana.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a republic in West Africa on the Gulf of Guinea

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Named after the Ghana Empire, in turn from Mande ghana ("warrior king") by J. B. Danquah.

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