Keta

Keta, town, southeastern Ghana. It lies on the Gulf of Guinea of the Atlantic Ocean, near the mouth of the Volta River. It is built on a sandspit separating the Atlantic from the Keta Lagoon. Before the arrival of Europeans in the 15th century, the area was part of the African kingdom of Anlo. The settlement was a port for trade in slaves, ivory, spices, and gold. The expanding Asante empire controlled much of the region by the first half of the 18th century. A Danish fort was built on the site in 1784, and in 1850, when Keta became a British colony, the Danes sold the fort to the British. Until the harbour at Tema began operations to the west in 1962, Keta served as an open roadstead port.

Its double waterfront, once an asset to the main occupations of fishing and fish processing, eroded rapidly. During the 20th century more than half of what had been the area of the town was washed away. Many of Keta’s inhabitants moved south along the coast to Dzelukofe. In 1992 the Anlo-Keta Lagoon was placed on its list of Wetlands of International Importance by the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, and in 1999 work began on measures to limit further erosion and to control flooding of the coastal region. Pop. (2010) 147,618.