Ashanti, also known as Asante, are part of the Akan ethnic group and are native to the Ashanti Region of modern-day Ghana.

They live mainly in Ghana and Ivory Coast.

The Ashanti of Cote d’Ivoire are numbering 419,000. In Ghana today, there are about 4.7 million Ashanti people, who live in the center of Ghana’s four main political regions.

The wealthy, gold-rich Asante people developed the large and influential Ashanti Empire, along the Lake Volta and Gulf of Guinea. The empire was founded in 1670, and the Asante capital Kumasi was founded in 1680 by Asantehene (emperor) Osei Kofi Tutu I on the advice of Okomfo Anokye, his premier. Sited at the crossroads of the Trans-Saharan trade, the Kumasi megacity’s strategic location contributed significantly to its growing wealth.

Over the duration of the Kumasi metropolis’ existence, a number of peculiar factors have combined to transform the Kumasi metropolis into a financial centre and political capital. The main causal factors included the unquestioning loyalty to the Asante rulers and the Kumasi metropolis’ growing wealth, derived in part from the capital’s lucrative domestic-trade in items such as gold, slaves, and bullion.