Lake Bosumtwi

The lake Bosumtwi , the only natural lake of the Ghana, is located approximately 30 km at the south-east of Kumasi. It has a diameter of approximately 8 km. This Lac of wide crater is with the hollow of an old man Cratère of impact. The lake is a place of leisure appreciated by the local population.

The Ashanti regard Bosumtwi as a crowned lake. According to the local belief, the hearts of there dead come to bid their farewell with the Twi god. Because of that it is allowed to fish in the lake only on boards out of wooden.

There is about thirty villages around the lake which constitute a population of 70 000 inhabitants.

The crater of impact of the lake Bosumtwi has a diameter of 10,5 km, and one considers his age at to 1,07 million years, at the time of the Pléistocène.

The rain filled the site of the crater in the middle of the Equatorial forest made difficult to establish the origin due to an impact of Météorite. The cone of percussion is largely covered with vegetation. The crater partly was also eroded. However the dome of the crater, discovered under the surface of the lake, made it possible to identify the lake Bosumtwi as a crater of impact. The discovery of Tectite S in source probably of this impact, also far until in Coast-D' Ivory gives an idea of the violence of the impact.

The climate changed several times since the impact. Periods of intense pluviometry filled the crater with water, bringing the level of the lake to its point of discharge. These periods are confirmed by the presence of fish fossils in top of the walls of the crater. Water has even run by an emissary river. However it also periods ago when the level of water was so low that the forest could installed in the basin, reducing the lake to a kind of pond. This period lasted, according to the legend, until approximately 300 years ago.

The legends say that in 1648 a hunter Ashanti of the name of Akora Bompe coming from the town of Asaman continued an antelope wounded through the forest when, suddenly, the animal disappeared in a small pond. It was as if this water mass wanted to save the life of the animal. The hunter never caught this antelope, however it settled close to water and started to fish. It named this place Bosomtwe , which wants to say “good antelope”. This history suggests that at that time the level of water was very low. The large dead trees that one sees emerging from the lake also constitute of the evidence of that because they have more than 300 years.

The centuries which followed knew several wars whose stake was the lake, as well on behalf of Ashanti as of the Akim, each one asserting this zone. Ashanti finally carried it.

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