In the early 1950s, Tema was a small fishing village east of Accra. Within fifteen years, it had become the site of Ghana’s biggest harbour, an industrial city and the country’s first motorway.
Tema was the centrepiece of Kwame Nkrumah’s plans for industrialisation. The government chose it for a new deep-water harbour and built a planned city around it, laid out in numbered “Communities”. The harbour opened in 1962, and the Accra-Tema Motorway, the first in Ghana, opened in 1965.
Moving a village
Building the harbour meant relocating the original fishing community of Tema. Residents were moved to a new settlement, Tema Manhean, built for them nearby. The relocation was one of the first large resettlement projects of the independence era, and its effects on the fishing families are still discussed.
The harbour
Tema Harbour was designed to handle the growing volume of Ghana’s imports and exports, including cocoa, and to support new industries. Over the decades it became the country’s main port, and it has been expanded several times, including a large container terminal built in recent years. Much of what Ghana imports, from cars to rice, passes through Tema.
The industrial city
Nkrumah’s government brought factories to Tema: an aluminium smelter linked to the Akosombo Dam, an oil refinery, food processing, textiles and other industries. The Valco aluminium smelter, fed by electricity from Akosombo, was one of the flagship projects of the era.
The city itself was planned with residential communities, schools, markets and industrial areas separated by design. It was one of the most ambitious planned cities in post-independence Africa.
The motorway
The Accra-Tema Motorway, about 19 kilometres long, was built to link the capital with the port and industrial zone. At the time it was a symbol of modernity. Today it is one of the busiest roads in the country, often congested and in need of repair. Governments have announced plans to expand and rehabilitate it many times.
The Greenwich Meridian
Tema also has a geographic distinction: the Greenwich Meridian, zero degrees longitude, passes through the city. A marker in Tema notes the spot, and Ghana is often described as the country closest to the point where the meridian meets the equator.
Tema today
Tema has grown far beyond its original plan, with new communities and settlements spreading around it. It remains central to Ghana’s economy, and it has its own identity, separate from Accra, with its own sports clubs, music scene and community pride. Sarkodie, Ghana’s biggest rapper, grew up in Tema.
A fishing village was moved to make way for a harbour. The city that grew around it now handles much of what Ghana buys and sells.
