Concept

Kumasi

Summary
Kumasi (historically spelled Comassie or Coomassie, usually spelled Kumase in Twi) is a city in the Ashanti Region, and is among the largest metropolitan areas in Ghana. Kumasi is located in a rain forest region near Lake Bosomtwe, and is the commercial, industrial, and cultural capital of the historical Ashanti Empire. Kumasi is approximately north of the Equator and north of the Gulf of Guinea. Kumasi is alternatively known as "The Garden City" because of its many species of flowers and plants in the past. It is also called Oseikrom, after Osei Kofi Tutu I. Kumasi is the second-largest city in Ghana, after the capital, Accra. The Central Business District of Kumasi includes areas such as Adum, Bantama, Kejetia, Asawasi, Pampaso, and Bompata (popularly called Roman Hill), with a concentration of banks, department stalls, and hotels. Economic activities in Kumasi include financial and commercial sectors, pottery, clothing and textiles. There is a significant timber processing community in Kumasi that serves the domestic market. Bantama High Street and Prempeh II Street in Bantama and Adum, respectively, are the business and entertainment hubs in Kumasi. There is evidence that the area around Kumasi has been kept cleared since the Neolithic age and that the first human settlement was at Lake Bosomtwe. The name Kumasi derives from the Twi language, meaning 'the Kum tree survived'. The word "asi" means 'something that has endured or survived'. Around the end of the 17th century, the Ashanti Kingdom's chief fetish Priest, Okomfo Anokye planted three kum trees at different places: one at Kwaaman, ruled by the Nananom Ayokofuo; a second one at Apemso-Bankofo, ruled by Nananom Aduanafuo; and a third at a village near Fomena and Amoafo called Oboani, which was ruled by Nananom Ɛkoɔnafuo. Komfuo wanted to see which of these would become a great city for the kingdom, as he was directed by the oracles. The kum tree at Kwaaman flourished so vigorously that the King and his people often sat underneath, and so Kwaaman became Kum-ase, meaning 'under kum.
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