Takoradi Harbour, built between 1921 and 1928 by the British colonial administration, was West Africa's first purpose-built deep-water port. It was constructed primarily to export the gold, timber, and manganese of the Ghanaian interior; today it is also the logistical hub of Ghana's offshore oil industry, and the adjacent supply base is one of the busiest in West Africa.
Visitors cannot enter the working port itself, but the harbour front and the approaches give a sense of the scale of what was built here: the original breakwater, the colonial-era warehouses, and the constant movement of vessels from supply ships to fishing canoes. The contrast between the century-old port infrastructure and the modern oil service industry operating alongside it is striking.