Northern Region, Ghana — Towns & Travel Guide

What is Northern Region known for?

As the capital of the Northern Region and the third-largest city in Ghana, Tamale carries a weight that no other settlement in the region approaches, and travel across the sixteen districts is organised around it. The region is large. Only one of Ghana's sixteen regions covers more ground, which is why crossing the Northern Region is measured in long road hours rather than short hops between towns.

It used to be larger still.

Where is Northern Region?

The Northern Region sits in the northern part of the country. It is the second largest of Ghana's sixteen administrative regions, a spread of ground wide enough that the sixteen districts inside it are separated by distances that shape every itinerary. Tamale holds the middle of it.

Ghana's third-largest city serves as the regional capital, and the practical geography of the Northern Region is best understood as a set of distances measured out from Tamale. The boundary is younger than the region. Savannah Region and North East Region were created from the Northern Region in December 2018, so the shape on a map is a recent one drawn inside a much older territory.

Sixteen districts divide the ground. That internal structure gives the Northern Region a granularity that the single regional name hides, and moving between districts is the ordinary business of travelling here. Ghana's tropics reach this far north.

The Northern Region falls within the tropical band of the northern hemisphere, so the year runs on wet and dry rather than the four seasons of temperate country, and the ground reflects that division. Distance shapes every plan here. Second in size among the sixteen regions, the Northern Region is planned around hours on the road rather than stops between towns, which is the first thing an itinerary has to absorb.

What is Northern Region like?

English is the official medium. Administration across the Northern Region's sixteen districts runs in it, as does the business of the regional capital, which makes Tamale a straightforward city to arrive in without local language. Tamale sets the region's tone.

Its standing as Ghana's third-largest city gives the regional capital an urban character out of proportion to its surroundings, and much of what happens publicly in the Northern Region happens there. The districts hold the rest. Sixteen of them share the region between the capital and its boundaries, and life outside Tamale is organised at that district scale rather than at the scale of the region as a whole.

The region lost ground in 2018. Savannah Region and North East Region were carved out of it that December, which redrew the map and left the Northern Region smaller than the territory the name once covered. The capital did not move.

Tamale stayed the seat of the Northern Region through the division, so the administrative centre of the smaller territory is the same city that served the larger one. Two new regions stand beside it. Savannah Region and North East Region are neighbours that did not exist before December 2018, and the Northern Region's relationship with them is that of a parent territory to what was taken from it.

What is the history of Northern Region?

December 2018 changed the region's outline. Savannah Region and North East Region were created from the Northern Region that month, and the territory that carries the name has been the smaller one since. Tamale carried on as capital.

Ghana's third-largest city held the administrative role through the change, which kept the Northern Region's centre fixed while its boundary moved. The region is divided into sixteen districts.

What is the climate of Northern Region?

Distance from the sea shapes it. The Northern Region lies in the tropical band of the northern hemisphere, and its position in the northern part of the country puts it well back from any coast, so the year is read as wet and dry rather than as four seasons. Scale spreads the effect.

The Northern Region is the second largest of the sixteen regions, so conditions at one end of a journey need not match those at the other, and timing matters more here than in a compact region.

How do you get to Northern Region?

Routes converge on Tamale. The regional capital is where arrivals into the Northern Region are handled, and from there the sixteen districts open out, each far enough from the next to make its own journey. Savannah Region and North East Region sit alongside.

Both were created out of the Northern Region in December 2018, so a journey that crosses the old territory now crosses regional boundaries that did not exist before.