The Ghana Empire (c. 300 until c. 1200) was located in what is now southeastern Mauritania and western Mali. Complex societies based on trans-Saharan trade with salt and gold had existed in the region since ancient times[1] But the introduction of the camel to western Sahara in the 3rd century A.D. gave way to great changes in the area that became the Ghana Empire. By the time of the Muslim conquest of North Africa in the 7th century the camel had changed the ancient more irregular trade routes into a trade network running from Morocco to the Niger river. The Ghana empire grew rich from this increased trans-Saharan trade in gold and salt allowing for larger urban centers to develop. It further more encouraged territorial expansion to gain control over the different traderoutes.

When Ghana's ruling dynasty began is uncertain; it was mentioned for the first time in written records by Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī in 830.[2] In the 11th century the Cordoban scholar Abu Ubayd al-Bakri collected stories from a number of travelers to the region, and gave a detailed description of the kingdom. He claimed that the Ghana could "put 200,000 men into the field, more than 40,000 of them archers" and noted they had cavalry forces as well.[3]

As the empire declined it was finally made a vassal to the rising Mali Empire at some point in the 13th century. When the Gold Coast in 1957 became the first black nation in sub-Saharan Africa to regain its independence from colonial rule it was renamed in honor of the long gone empire from which the ancestors to the Akan people of modern-day Ghana are thought to have migrated