Atlas of the Bulsa South District

Franz Kröger

Introduction

This atlas, although still imperfect, tries to fill a gap in the topographical exploration of Bulsaland.
Currently available maps and aerial photographs are either obsolete or contain too little detail. The topographic maps 1: 250,000 and 1: 125,000, published by the Survey of Ghana were followed by a series of 1: 50,000 maps. The latter, which were used as a foundation of our maps, are based on air photographs of 1960 and a field completion of 1970. These maps are quite accurate in their depiction (representation?) of roads, rivers and settlements. Their deficiency is rather shown in the labels (names?) of geographical topoi. The sections of the individual Bulsa villages were recorded and reproduced very imperfectly often lacking any names (labels? Bezeichnungen). In the mapping of settlements all changes after the onset of the 1980s construction boom were not considered (included?).

The aerial photographs from Google Earth naturally offer more details, but also here the labels (names?) of the topographical data are very sparse.
For the drawing up the sections of a village, the Ghana Population Census was only of limited value, since it does not distinguish between a Bulsa village (with its own Chief) and the sections, which are often politically represented by a subchief (kambonnaab). Most data on Bulsa villages can be found in the Census of 1960. In the latest edition (Population and Housing Census 2010) only a few Bulsa villages are treated, although a separate “District Analytical Report” was published on the Bulsa South District in 2014. On page 70f. a list of the 20 largest communities of the district appears, according to which Fumbisi with 2,647 inhabitants is the largest locality, whereas Fumbisi-Lusia [Luisa], a section of Fumbisi, appears at the 20th position. The question how the town of “Fumbisi” with its 2,647 inhabitants is defined here remains open (unanswered?).

Several people have had a share in complementing the imperfect maps and airial photos. Above all, it is my longtime assistant Yaw Akumasi William, who managed to insert a large amount of data into the prefabricated maps and aerial photographs of Gbedema, Kanjaga and Wiesi and drew his own maps of all the villages, except the old map (1986) of Fumbisi which was drawn by my late friend and assistant Michael Ankobilla. A similar work was done for Doninga by Alfred Amoak and for Gbedema by Augustine Abang. Finally, I (F.K.) could make use of my own mapping and records with a GPS device.
Despite all these efforts, the present series of maps remains imperfect. A permanent update is planned. All our readers are invited to correct mistakes and add more data.