Cape Coast is a city, fishing port, and the capital of Cape Coast Metropolitan District and Central Region of Ghana. It is one of the country's most historic cities, a World Heritage Site, home to the Cape Coast Castle, with the Gulf of Guinea situated to its south. According to the 2010 census, Cape Coast had a settlement population of 169,894 people. The language of the people of Cape Coast is Fante.
The older traditional names of the city are Oguaa and Kotokuraba. The Portuguese navigators João de Santarém and Pedro Escobar who sailed past Oguaa in 1471 designated the place Cabo Corso, from which the name Cape Coast derives. From the 16th century until the country became the independent nation of Ghana in 1957, the city and fishing port changed hands between the British, the Portuguese, the Swedish, the Danish and the Dutch. It is home to 32 festivals.