Suhum Municipal Assembly

History & establishment

Who We Are

Welcome to Suhum Municipality

The Suhum Municipal Assembly is one of the Thirty-Three districts in the Eastern Region of Ghana, it was granted its present status by the Legislative Instrument (LI) 2048of 2012. It was carved from the then Suhum-Kraboa-Coaltar district, in the year 2012. Its Capital is Suhum which is situated along the Accra-Kumasi Highway

  • 29,767,108 people
  • 239,460.0 km2
  • Suhum/Kraboa/Coaltar
Suhum Municipality

Location and Size of the Municipality

The Suhum Municipality is located in the south-central part of the Eastern Region of Ghana and covers a land area of about three hundred and fifty-eight square kilometres (358km2). It is bounded anti-clockwise by the New Juaben North Municipality to the north-east, East Akim Municipality to the north, Ayensuano District to the west and south, and Akuapim North Municipality to the east. The capital, Suhum, is only sixty kilometres (60km) northwest of Accra on the busy Accra-Kumasi-Tamale-Ouagadougou Highway.

Its location makes very attractive for traders in both primary and manufactured goods and an ideal place for dairy farming, because of the nearness to Accra and Tema, the largest market in the country.

With the completion of the dualization of the Accra-Apedwa Highway, travelling time from Suhum to Accra will be reduced to about forty-five (45) minutes making Suhum a ‘dormitory’ town to Accra. However, this can also result in the development of real estate.

Suhum municipality

Relief and Drainage

The climate is of the tropical type and the temperature ranges from 240C to 290C. The hottest months are March and April while the coolest months are December and January. Relative humidity especially in the rainy season is between 87% and 91%. It is between 48% and 52% in the dry season. The municipality falls under the influence of both the south west monsoon winds and north east trade winds and characterized by double maxima rainfall in March to October and November to February respectively with the heaviest rainfall in June. Averagely, the district experiences an annual temperature of 24 degrees Celsius, with the weather usually cold and often experience relative humidity throughout the year.

Suhum Municipality

Vegetation

The municipality is predominantly a forest zone with few semi-savannah areas at the Northern part. The typical wet- semi deciduous forest vegetation covers about 70 percent of the total vegetation cover across the municipality.

This vegetation is therefore suitable for the cultivation of cash crops like cocoa, coffee, rubber, oil palm and citrus as well as stable food crops such as plantain, cocoyam, cassava, maize, rice and vegetables. Most of these crops are exported which help generate more income for farmers, the district and the country as a whole.

Suhum municipality

Ecology

The municipality has very suitable conditions for the development of agriculture and the lumber industry. Large scale production of cocoa took place in the early part of the 1930s. However, most of the cocoa farms were destroyed by the swollen shoot disease in the 1940s. Through the Eastern Region Cocoa Rehabilitation Project some of the farms were restored. However the bush fire of 1983 referred to above dealt devastating blow to the industry. Production of food crops which is mostly subsistence is the other major agricultural activity but the shortness of the fallow period and bushfires have led to land degeneration and low crop yields. Land degradation has led to sheet erosion along the slopes, resulting in the siltation and drying up of rivers and streams during the dry season.