Qualla: Rattray Park

Rattray Park: Introduction

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Kumasi was once called the Garden City of West Africa. The nickname dated to the mid-twentieth century, when the colonial government introduced parks, green belts, and planned residential areas based on the Garden City model designed by Ebenezer Howard. Decades of rapid urbanization eroded that identity, burying green space under concrete and commerce. In 2015, the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly decided to reclaim the title, and the centerpiece of that effort was a new park named after a Scotsman who, a century earlier, had done something unusual for a colonial official: he listened to the Ashanti and wrote down what they told him.

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Rattray Park: The Anthropologist's Legacy

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Captain Robert Sutherland Rattray was born in India in 1881 and arrived on the Gold Coast in 1906 as a customs officer. He taught himself local languages and, by 1921, had been appointed head of the newly established Anthropological Department of Asante. Where his colonial contem...

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Rattray Park: Opening Day

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Rattray Park was inaugurated on June 20, 2015, by President John Dramani Mahama, Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, and Kumasi Mayor Kojo Bonsu. The cost of construction reached 4.4 million US dollars, funded by the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly. The ceremony itself captured somethi...

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Rattray Park: Dancing Water and Open Grass

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The park's signature attraction is a six-square-meter dancing fountain, the first of its kind in Ghana, which draws families and couples in the evenings when the water catches colored lights. Around it, the grounds offer an artificial lake, a children's playground, a gym, WiFi ac...

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Rattray Park: Green Space in a Growing City

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Kumasi's claim to be a Garden City has been fading for decades. In the mid-twentieth century, the colonial planner Maxwell Fry designed a development plan based on Howard's Garden City ideals, giving the city its parks, green belts, and tree-lined boulevards. By the early 2000s, ...

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