Tour Ghana

Festivals in Ghana

Durbars, chieftaincy rites, harvest thanksgivings and street festivals, from the Ga twins ceremony in Accra to the Kobine dance in Ghana’s far north.

Homowo FestivalView festival

Homowo Festival

Greater Accra

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12 festivals across Ghana

Homowo FestivalFestivals

Homowo Festival

The Ga harvest festival that "hoots at hunger", marked across Accra with a ban on drumming, then a month of processions.

Greater Accra

Damba FestivalFestivals

Damba Festival

The great festival of the Dagbon, Mamprusi and Gonja kingdoms, marked with drumming, dancing and a mounted chiefs’ durbar.

Northern Region

AboakyerFestivals

Aboakyer

Each May, two rival Asafo companies in Winneba race unarmed into the bush to catch a live bushbuck for the Effutu god Otu, then parade it home to a beach town in full carnival mood.

Central Region

OdwiraFestivals

Odwira

A week of purification and thanksgiving in the hill town of Akropong, Odwira cleans the ancestral stools of the Akuapem state and formally releases the new yam crop for eating.

Eastern Region

HogbetsotsoFestivals

Hogbetsotso

Anloga’s biggest day of the year re-tells the seventeenth-century escape of the Anlo-Ewe from the walled city of Notsie, with a coastal clean-up, peace rites and a grand durbar.

Volta Region

KundumFestivals

Kundum

A rolling calendar of harvest thanksgiving festivals along the western coast, Kundum passes through Ahanta and Nzema towns from August into November, each keeping its own date.

Western Region

Fetu AfahyeFestivals

Fetu Afahye

The Oguaa state’s biggest festival closes out the year with Asafo companies parading from Kotokuraba Market to the chief’s palace, marking a historic purification that ended a plague.

Central Region

BakatueFestivals

Bakatue

Every July, the chief of Elmina casts a net into the Benya Lagoon to lift a season-long fishing ban, opening the year’s fishing season with a royal procession and durbar.

Central Region

AkwasidaeFestivals

Akwasidae

Every sixth Sunday, the Asantehene, chiefs and elders assemble at Manhyia Palace to honour Asante ancestors and display the Golden Stool — the closest most visitors get to the working court of the Asante kingdom.

Ashanti Region

KobineFestivals

Kobine

Deep in the Upper West, Lawra’s Dagara community spends four days reuniting scattered families, parading as hunters and elephants, and competing in the region’s signature Kobine dance.

Upper West Region

Panafest & Emancipation DayFestivals

Panafest & Emancipation Day

Every odd-numbered year, the Pan-African Historical Theatre Festival brings performers and visitors from across Africa and its diaspora to Cape Coast and Elmina, closing with a candlelight vigil at the Door of No Return.

Central Region

Chale Wote Street Art FestivalFestivals

Chale Wote Street Art Festival

For five days each August, Accra’s historic Jamestown fills with murals, performance and film as the Chale Wote Street Art Festival turns its lanes and lighthouse into Ghana’s biggest contemporary arts event.

Greater Accra