CULTURE

Cultural activities in the District are very diverse as a result of the many migrants in the District. There are two main festivals that are celebrated by the people in the District namely, Akwasidae and Afahyea. Since the people are predominantly Akans, Akwasidae is usually celebrated on every 40th day in a year in the District and Afahyea festival is also celebrated from the second week in November to first week in December annually. There is a vibrant cultural troupe in the District that entertains guests during special occasions.

Adansi South District is made up of multi-ethnic communities, inhabited by many of the country’s ethnic groups, including the indigenous Asantes, Ga-Damgbes, Fantis, Ewes, Akwapims, Akims as well as Mole-Dagbani and other ethnic groups from the North. These multi-ethnic settlers have come from far and near to engage in production of cocoa crops which is the principal economic activity of the District. The Asantes constitutes the majority constituting 33 percent.

Religious Affiliation

The main religious groups in the District are Christianity, Islam and Traditional Religion. Analysis of religious composition indicates that about 82 percent of the population are Christians while about seven percent and two percent are Islam and Traditionalists respectively.

The data from the 2010 PHC revealed that various forms of religious affiliations exist in the District. These religious affiliations include Catholic, Protestant (Anglican/Lutheran) Pentecostal/Charismatic, Other Christians, Islam and Traditionalist. As presented in Table 1 Catholic, Protestant, Pentecostal and other Christians form the larger Christian group (94,259) of the total population 115,378. Islam represents 6.8 percent, Traditionalists represent 1.6 percent while other religions constitute 0.9 percent. The populations that belong to non-religion however constitute 9.0 percent of the entire District population.

The table further shows that Pentecostal/Charismatic (31.2%) is the highest of the Christian denomination, followed by Protestants (17%) and then Catholics (8.7%) as well as all the others being 24.7. Proportion (6.8%) of Islam faith is much lower in the District than in the entire Ashanti Region (15.2%) and in the country (17.6%).

Moreover all Christian denominations have higher proportion of males than females, except “Other Christians” (28,479), where the proportion of female (25.6%) is higher than male (23.7%). The figure for the males belonging to Islam (7.5%) is also higher than the female (6.0%). In the case of Traditionalist and “Other religion”, the proportion of male and female is 1.6 percent and 0.9 percent respectively).

Tourism

There are a couple of tourist sites identified in the District and some of these include a Birds Sanctuary at Bonkro (White -Necked Picathartes), a Snake Palm Tree at Pra- Birim Aboi, the Nkabom festival which is celebrated every three years by Adansi Chiefs, the confluence of rivers Birim and Pra at Birim Aboye and Hwidiem respectively.