Islam in Ghana: history and Muslim population data

History of Islam in Ghana

The Republic of Ghana has an area of 238,533 sq km and its map is presented in Figure 3.2.6a. It was formed from the merger of the British colony of the Gold Coast (most of current Ghana) and the Togoland trust territory (the eastern part of current Ghana). Gold Coast was occupied by the British in 1874, while Togoland was taken in 1916 from Germans who occupied it since 1884 and split between the British and French. The latter became the nation of Togo after its independence. Ghana in 1957 became the first sub-Saharan country in colonial Africa to gain its independence.

Islam entered here through trade as early as the fourteenth century. Estimates of the Muslim population increased from 50,000 or 3.5% in 1891, to 75,000 or 5.0% in 1911. Per census data, the number of Muslims increased dramatically from 0.05 million or 1.6% in 1931, to 0.18 million or 4.0% in 1948, to 0.81 million or 12.1% in 1960, to 1.85 million or 15.0% in 1984, to 3.00 million or 15.9% in 2000, to 4.35 million or 17.6% in 2010, to 6.11 million or 19.9% in 2021.

Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims will continue to increase by two percentage points per decade; then the Muslim population is expected to exceed thirteen million or 26% by 2050 and 26 million or 36% by 2100.

Historical Muslim population dataset for Ghana

The figures below are from the CoMPS historical dataset. Population values are expressed in thousands; 2100 is a modelled projection, not a present-day count.

For the full time series and visualisation, use the interactive map above.