Cape Coast Castle Museum

The Cape Coast Castle Museum is an ethnography and archaeological museum housed in one wing of Cape Coast Castle, the 17th-century Swedish-founded fortification on the coast of Cape Coast in the Central Region. The museum was established in 1974 and substantially transformed in 1994 with support from the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board, UNDP, USAID, the Smithsonian Institution, the Government of Ghana and NGOs. The castle itself is inscribed as part of the UNESCO World Heritage listing of Ghana's forts and castles, and it serves as the regional headquarters of the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board.

Exhibits address the arrival of Europeans in Africa and the transatlantic slave trade, including maps of slave trade routes, shackles, a model of Cape Coast Castle, and objects traded for enslaved people such as glass beads, whiskey bottles and firearms. Other displays cover the pre-colonial history of the Central Region and contemporary culture, with gold weights, state swords, terracotta figurines, palanquins, clan staffs, canoes, textiles, carved wooden utensils and musical instruments. The castle also hosts the Building History Museum.

A 45-minute guided tour passes through the castle's dungeons, the condemned cell and the "Door of No Return". Facilities include conference halls, a library, an art and craft studio, a book store and gift shop, curio shops, a car park and an open courtyard used for outdoor activities.

The museum is open daily from 9:00am to 4:30pm. Published rates reviewed on 1 July 2023 were GHS 20 for Ghanaian adults and GHS 80 for non-Ghanaian adults, with lower rates for students and pupils; confirm current fees on arrival. The site is at Victoria Rd, Cape Coast, and the operator's listed phone number is +233-3321 32529.

Accessibility is limited and uneven. This is a historic fortress rather than an adapted museum: courtyards are stone and cobbled, some staircases are steep and narrow, and the dungeons sit below ground level, reached by sloping tunnels and steps. Ground-level courtyards are often manageable with a companion and guide, and guides adapt tours, but upper floors and most underground chambers are not wheelchair-reachable. A 2017 peer-reviewed study of Cape Coast and Elmina Castles found the castles inaccessible overall, while noting some ramps, spacious pathways and washroom handrails.