Ghana's pottery and crafts

A living craft tradition

Few countries wear their craft heritage as openly as Ghana. Along the roadside you will pass women shaping clay by hand, men weaving strips of kente on narrow looms, and workshops where molten brass is poured into moulds made from beeswax. These are not museum pieces or tourist reproductions; they are objects still made for weddings, funerals, chieftaincy and everyday use. That is what makes shopping here so rewarding — you can often meet the person who made the thing you buy.

This guide runs through the main craft families — pottery, beads, basketry, woodcarving, brass and textiles — and points you to the villages where they are still produced. It pairs well with a wider cultural holiday in Ghana, and if you are short on time, our overview of what to buy in Ghana covers the practicalities of getting it all home.

Pottery and clay

Ghanaian pottery is overwhelmingly the work of women, and much of it is coil-built and fired in open bonfires rather than kilns. The best-known centre is Vume, a village near Sogakope in the Volta Region, where families have thrown, coiled and burnished water pots, cooking vessels and planters for generations. The clay is dug locally, worked by hand and fired to a warm terracotta that keeps drinking water noticeably cool.

Near Kumasi, the suburb of Pankrono is the Ashanti pottery hub, turning out everything from incense pots to the tall storage jars used at shrines and funerals. If you are exploring the Volta on your way to Wli Falls and the Volta Region, Vume makes an easy and photogenic stop. Pots are cheap, but fragile — ask the seller to pack yours in straw, and carry it as hand luggage.

Beads and glass

If Ghana has a signature souvenir, it is the bead. The Krobo people of the Eastern Region, around Odumase and Somanya, are famous across West Africa for recycled-glass beads: old bottles are crushed, coloured, packed into clay moulds and fired, then strung into necklaces, bracelets and the ceremonial regalia worn at the Dipo rite of passage. A visit to a working bead factory, such as the well-known Cedi Bead operation, shows the whole process from broken glass to finished strand.

The twice-weekly bead market at Koforidua is the biggest in the country and a riot of colour and bargaining. To understand what you are looking at before you buy, read our dedicated guide to Krobo beads. In the capital you will also find beads by the tray at the Arts Centre and inside Accra's busiest markets.

Prices vary hugely with the age, rarity and quality of the glass, so browse a few stalls before committing.

Baskets and woodcarving

The Bolgatanga basket — the "Bolga" — has become one of Ghana's great craft exports. Woven from tough elephant grass in the Upper East Region, dyed in bright checks and finished with a leather-wrapped handle, these baskets are strong, beautiful and forgiving of a suitcase because they squash flat and spring back. Weaving is a whole-community craft here, done during the long dry season.

Woodcarving is centred on Aburi, in the hills above Accra, and across the Ashanti Region. Carvers produce the low Ashanti stool (a symbol of the soul and of chieftaincy), the fertility doll known as Akuaba with its distinctive flat disc head, drums, masks and salad servers. Aburi's craft village sits handily beside its botanical gardens; the Ashanti workshops are best folded into a tour of Kumasi and Ashanti.

Brass, kente and adinkra

The Ashanti are master metalworkers. Their brass and bronze is still cast by the lost-wax method: a model is sculpted in beeswax, encased in clay, then heated so the wax runs out and molten metal takes its place. The tiny gold weights once used to measure gold dust — figures, animals, proverbs in metal — are the most collectable pieces, and villages such as Kurofofrom near Kumasi keep the tradition going.

Textiles are a craft world of their own. Kente is hand-woven strip by strip at Bonwire, while at Ntonso artisans carve calabash stamps and print adinkra symbols — each with its own meaning — onto cloth using a black dye boiled from tree bark. Our kente and textiles guide goes deeper on the cloth itself.

Drums, xylophones and other instruments round out the craft scene, and many carvers will happily demonstrate before you buy.

Bring the crafts home with you

The joy of Ghanaian craft is meeting its makers, and that is exactly what a well-planned trip can build in — a morning at a bead factory, an afternoon with the weavers of Bonwire, a detour to the potters of Vume. We can thread these visits through a wider cultural itinerary and handle the logistics so you spend your time watching and buying, not driving.

Whether you want a single afternoon of shopping or a fortnight tracing crafts across the regions, get in touch for a quote and we will make it happen.

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