Accra and Ghana in numbers

30 series and 1,322 data points, most of them running back to 1960. Point at any chart, or drag across it on a phone, to read a single year.

Most of this is Ghana, not Accra

Almost no economic time series exists for Accra alone. Everything marked Ghana is national and is labelled that way on purpose.

Nobody publishes a GDP series, an inflation series or a school enrolment series for Greater Accra on its own, so this page does not pretend to. Every chart is stamped with what it covers — Accra, Ghana or Derived — and you can filter to the Accra figures alone, of which there are very few.

What we actually have for Accra

Very little, and it is worth being blunt about why. Ghana does not publish regional GDP as a series, regional inflation is not available in any machine-readable form, and the census runs roughly once a decade. So the Accra record is six population counts, the region's area, and one study of its share of the national economy.

Greater Accra at every census

Census People Per km² Share of Ghana
1960 491,817 152 7.1%
2021 5,455,692 1,681 16.8%

11.09 times more people in 2021 than in 1960, in a region whose boundaries also changed over that period — which the arithmetic cannot account for. The full six counts are on the chart above.

Accra's share of the economy

One study, by the UN Economic Commission for Africa with the Accra Metropolitan Authority, 2021, put Accra at 34 to 39% of Ghana's economy between 2015 and 2020, with output per person about 3 times the national average. Services were around 63% of that and manufacturing 20.5%.

It is a range over a period, not a series, and it is stored that way. There is no year-by-year figure for Accra's GDP to publish, so none is published here. — The study

Every series, and what it covers

First value, last value, and how many observations there are. The scope column is the important one.

Greater Accra itself (1)

Series Unit First Latest Points Source
People in Greater Accra people 491,817
1960
5.5m
2021
6 Ghana Statistical Service census counts, 1960 to 2021

Derived from two sourced series (2)

Series Unit First Latest Points Source
People per square kilometre in Greater Accra per km² 151.6
1960
1,681
2021
6 Census counts divided by the region's 3,245 km²
Share of all Ghanaians living in Greater Accra % 7.1%
1960
16.8%
2021
6 Census counts for Greater Accra over World Bank population for Ghana

Ghana as a whole, not Accra (27)

Series Unit First Latest Points Source
Population of Ghana people 7.0m
1960
35.1m
2025
66 World Bank, indicator SP.POP.TOTL
Population growth % a year 2.9%
1961
1.8%
2025
65 World Bank, indicator SP.POP.GROW
Urban population people 1.6m
1960
20.7m
2025
66 World Bank, indicator SP.URB.TOTL
Share of Ghanaians living in towns and cities % 23.3%
1960
58.9%
2025
66 World Bank, indicator SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS
Urban population growth % a year 5.7%
1961
2.8%
2025
65 World Bank, indicator SP.URB.GROW
Life expectancy at birth years 46.9
1960
65.7
2024
65 World Bank, indicator SP.DYN.LE00.IN
Births per woman births 6.9
1960
3.3
2024
65 World Bank, indicator SP.DYN.TFRT.IN
Under fifteens % of population 45.4%
1960
35.4%
2025
66 World Bank, indicator SP.POP.0014.TO.ZS
GDP US$ $1.2bn
1960
$114.2bn
2025
66 World Bank, indicator NY.GDP.MKTP.CD
GDP per person US$ $174.9
1960
$3,257
2025
66 World Bank, indicator NY.GDP.PCAP.CD
GDP growth % a year 3.4%
1961
6%
2025
65 World Bank, indicator NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG
Inflation % a year 26.4%
1965
14.2%
2025
61 World Bank, indicator FP.CPI.TOTL.ZG
Cedis to the US dollar GHS 0
1960
12.6
2025
66 World Bank, indicator PA.NUS.FCRF
Money sent home from abroad US$ $1.3m
1979
$2.4bn
2025
47 World Bank, indicator BX.TRF.PWKR.CD.DT
Exports % of GDP 28.2%
1960
35.1%
2024
65 World Bank, indicator NE.EXP.GNFS.ZS
Unemployment % of labour force 3.5%
1991
3%
2025
35 World Bank, indicator SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS
Finishing primary school % of age group 61.9%
1971
97.5%
2024
33 World Bank, indicator SE.PRM.CMPT.ZS
Enrolled in secondary school % of age group 31.7%
1999
57.2%
2019
17 World Bank, indicator SE.SEC.NENR
Enrolled in tertiary education % of age group 0.7%
1971
21.3%
2024
30 World Bank, indicator SE.TER.ENRR
Government spending on education % of GDP 4.2%
1971
2.9%
2022
34 World Bank, indicator SE.XPD.TOTL.GD.ZS
Adult literacy % of adults 57.9%
2000
76.5%
2021
5 World Bank, indicator SE.ADT.LITR.ZS
Access to electricity % of population 30.6%
1993
91.9%
2024
32 World Bank, indicator EG.ELC.ACCS.ZS
Basic drinking water % of population 65.5%
2000
89.9%
2024
25 World Bank, indicator SH.H2O.BASW.ZS
Basic sanitation % of population 5.7%
2000
31.6%
2024
25 World Bank, indicator SH.STA.BASS.ZS
Using the internet % of population 0%
1990
72.2%
2024
31 World Bank, indicator IT.NET.USER.ZS
Mobile subscriptions per 100 people 0
1960
113.6
2024
53 World Bank, indicator IT.CEL.SETS.P2
Health spending % of GDP 1.7%
2000
2.9%
2023
24 World Bank, indicator SH.XPD.CHEX.GD.ZS

Where all of this comes from

WhatSourceLicence
National indicators, 1960 onwards World Bank Open Data CC BY 4.0
Greater Accra census counts Ghana Statistical Service Official statistics
Accra's share of national GDP UN Economic Commission for Africa with the Accra Metropolitan Authority, 2021 UN report

Fetched on 2026-09-10. Nothing here is modelled, interpolated or forecast: where a series is sparse it stays sparse, and the charts draw the observations rather than joining across the gaps.

The map of Greater Accra, district by district ⇒
Business viability checker ⇒
Where you can fly nonstop from Accra ⇒
What living in Accra costs ⇒

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