Location & Size

The Kwahu West Municipal is one of the newly created districts in the Eastern Region of Ghana and lies between latitudes 6°30 ° North, and 7° North and longitudes 0°30 ° West and 1° West of the equator, covering an area of about 414 square kilometers. The Municipal capital, Nkawkaw, is located about 241 km North-West of Accra. The Municipal is bounded to the north by the Kwahu South District, to the West by Asante-Akim South District. To the East, it is bounded by the Fanteakwa District and to the south by Birim North and Atiwa Districts. It has a total land area of 414km2.

Climate and Vegetation

The Kwahu West Municipal  lies within the semi-deciduous forest zone, which belongs to the Antiaris-Chlorphora association. The vegetation is dense and consists of major economic trees such as Odum, Wawa and Sapele. The forest is made up of three layers with most of the trees in the upper and middle layers exhibiting deciduous characteristics during the dry season, which starts in November and ends in March. Unfortunately, few of the virgin forests remain today due to the negative effects of human activities such as timber extraction, farming and bush fire. Most forest areas have been replaced by secondary bush or forest, which is easily distinguished from the climatic climax vegetation. There are three forest reserves with the southern scarp forest reserve, which covers an area of 15460 hectares being the largest. Others include: the Kade Bebo, Nkawanda. The table below shows the various forest reserves in the municipality.

Geology and Soil

Soils in the municipality  belong to a category called Forest Ochresols and consist of clay loamy soils. These are sub-divided into various groups comprising, fine sand loams, clay loams, concretional loams, non-gravel sandy clay loams, sandy loams and iron pan soils. These soils posses the good chemical properties of clay and appreciable amounts of humus making them generally fertile and a great potential for cash and food crop production. Each of these soils has its peculiar characteristics and the type of crops.