Modern mapping of the West African state of Ghana was established prior to independence in 1957 when the country was the British colony of the Gold Coast. Series at 1:62,500, 1:125,000 and 1:250,000 scales were compiled by the Survey Department (SDG) in Accra and printed with imperial contours. 1:50,000 scale mapping also started prior to independence, using the same quarter-degree sheet lines and also on the Transverse Mercator projection, War Office ellipsoid. The current series requires 355 sheets for complete national coverage. The northern half of the country was mapped in a cooperative project with the British Directorate of Overseas Surveys (DOS) (now Ordnance Survey International (OSI)) and the first map was published in 1960. This too had imperial contours and despite adopting the metric system in 1974 there are no plans to upgrade the specification. All the northern sheets were available as three-colour maps by 1989. Similar aid projects in conjunction with Canadian aid donors flew new aerial coverage for the remainder of the country and all sheets were compiled by 1990, most were printed and interim dyeline editions were available for any remaining areas. In 1993 SDG received World Bank support to establish a 1:50,000 scale land use map of the whole country, with data derived from LANDSAT and SPOT data and from digitized 1:50,000 scale topographic coverage. Large scale photogrammetric mapping of about 50 towns and cities in Ghana has been produced at a scale of 1:2,500, and town guide maps of Accra and other large towns are published. New mapping at 1:10,000 and 1:25,000 scale was started towards the end of the 1980s and included metric contouring.
Soviet military topographic mapping of Ghana exists at the following scales: 1:1,000,000 (4 sheets, complete coverage, published in 1986); 1:500,000 (10 sheets, complete coverage, published 1983-1985); 1:200,000 (45 sheets, complete coverage, published 1981-1985) and city (1:10,000) topographic mapping of Accra and Kumasi published between 1977 and 1978. These products are available in print, digital raster and digital vector GIS formats from East View Geospatial.
Geological mapping of Ghana is carried out by the Geological Survey of Ghana. A 1:100,000 map has been compiled in conjunction with Bundesanstalt fϋr Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe (BfGR) for parts of the southwest of the country and nine full-color sheets appeared as issues of Geologisches Jarhbuch in 1993 and 1997 with an accompanying explanation of the geology. There are no plans to extend this survey to the whole country. In the 1960s and 1970s the Geological Survey compiled a variety of small-scale earth science maps, and a limited number of more detailed quarter-degree sheets. The Water Research Institute in Accra is currently publishing a hydrogeological map of Ghana.
Resources mapping of Ghana includes small scale coverage compiled to accompany a National Resources Institute (NRI) report on agricultural productivity of the country. The Forestry Department, Accra, is responsible for planning sustainable development of Ghana’s forest resources, and planned in 1993 to digitize 1:50,000 scale mapping to create a thematic coverage of forest reserves in the country.
The National Atlas Development Centre (NADEC) in the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research has published a number of smaller scale thematic maps. Established in 1969, it was originally intended to produce a national atlas with about 150 1:1,500,000 scale sheets in conjunction with SDG. About 35 two-color maps appeared in the early 1970s. More recently NADEC has published a single-sheet tourist map of the country, and is working on small scale energy and mines mapping, a vegetation map and ethnic mapping of Ghana.
ITM publishes a useful tourist map of the country, and Macmillan issues a relief-based wall map of Ghana.
Copyright © 2014 De Gruyter for e-version of World Mapping Today, 2nd Edition | Copyright © 2019 East View Geospatial, Inc.
