Accra's old harbour quarter
Jamestown
A red-and-white lighthouse, painted fishing canoes and street murals in the oldest part of Accra.
Why Jamestown is lighthouse red
Jamestown is one of the oldest districts of Accra, the capital of Ghana, grown up around a British fort of the 17th century. It is home to the Ga people, many of whom fish. A lighthouse striped in red and white stands above the shore; the present tower dates from the 1930s. On the beach below, long wooden canoes are painted in bands of blue, yellow, red and green, with flags, symbols and proverbs. Since 2011 the Chale Wote street art festival has brought painters and performers to the district each year, leaving murals on walls and old warehouses. Colonial buildings in faded pastels line the main street. The area is also famous for producing boxers.
Values are fair approximations of what the eye sees there, not measurements.
Colours tied to Jamestown
Written by the Rang desk with AI assistance. Background: "Jamestown/Usshertown, Accra" on Wikipedia. If you know Jamestown and we have it wrong, tell us.
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🇬🇭 Home of kente clothBonwireA weaving village near Kumasi where narrow strips of kente are woven in gold, green, red and black.
🇮🇳 The open-air gallery of RajasthanShekhawatiMerchant mansions in the towns of north Rajasthan are covered inside and out with painted murals.
🇮🇳 Land of mirror work and white desertKutchEmbroidery, tie-dye and block print in deep red and indigo, set against the white salt of the Rann.
🇮🇳 The silk cityKanchipuramA temple town in Tamil Nadu whose heavy silk saris pair strong body colours with contrasting gold borders.
🇮🇳 Red earth and a golden sphereAurovilleAn experimental township on red earth near Pondicherry, centred on the golden globe of the Matrimandir.
🇮🇳 Akbar's red sandstone cityFatehpur SikriA Mughal capital built in one red stone in the 1570s and left by the court only a few years later.Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Shekhawati In: Digrajsingh, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Kutch In: Zeel Satyendra Modi, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Kanchipuram In: Ssriram mt, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Auroville In: Kaspar Konrad, Public domain, source
- Fatehpur Sikri In: HibaSiddiqui, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Bonwire Gh: Sadads, CC BY-SA 4.0, source