Ghana is a country in West Africa that borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Ghana. The first permanent state dates to the eleventh century CE, with the Kingdom of Ashanti being one of the most powerful to control the region. Europeans began contesting for control of the region in the fifteenth century, with the British taking control in the late nineteenth century. Its present-day borders were solidified, and it became the British Gold Coast in the early nineteenth century. It gained independence in the 1957.