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Claim: Former Ghanaian presidential candidate Alan John Kyerematen claimed that Ghana has 32 UNESCO World Heritage sites out of the 42 worldwide.
Verdict: False. UNESCO’s official World Heritage Convention records show that Ghana has two properties inscribed on the World Heritage List. They are the Forts and Castles, Volta, Greater Accra, Central and Western Regions, and the Asante Traditional Buildings.
Full Text
Former Trade Minister and presidential candidate of the Movement for Change, now the United Party (UP), Alan Kyerematen, has claimed that Ghana has 32 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) World Heritage sites out of 42 recognised globally.
Kyerematen made the claim during a media engagement in Accra on Sept. 23, 2026, on Ghana’s industrial sector development.
“Can you imagine that Ghana has 32 out of the 42 globally accredited UNESCO World Heritage sites?” he asked, while discussing Ghana’s tourism potential.
Watch minutes 0:01 to 0:27 of the TV3 video for the statement.
Other media outlets, including Onua TV, GhanaWeb, GhanaGuardian, and GhanaWebbers, also amplified the statement.
As of Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026, the post has gathered 357 likes, 73 comments, and 12,000 views.
Most Facebook users who commented on the post asked whether Ghana could account for 32 of the world’s UNESCO World Heritage sites.
“32 out of 42? Where is this statistic confirmed? Thought there were over 1200 of them,” Ben Mensah asked.
“I doubt these statistics. Where are these sites?” Larry Ibrahim Fataka, another Facebook user, commented, describing the claim as suspicious.
DUBAWA fact-checked the claim against UNESCO’s official World Heritage records to establish the total number of its sites in Ghana.
Verification
A UNESCO World Heritage site is usually a landmark deemed to have “universal value,” protected under an international treaty called the World Heritage Convention.
Further inquiries show no maximum limit on the number of UNESCO World Heritage sites a country can have. UNESCO also has no fixed cap on the total number of approved sites worldwide.
As of October 2024, the World Heritage Convention has 1273 cultural and heritage properties across 173 State Parties, including 991 cultural properties, 240 natural properties, and 42 mixed properties.
What are UNESCO mixed properties under the World Heritage Convention?
The international body refers to such properties as those that satisfy part or all of the definitions of both cultural and natural heritage stipulated in Articles 1 and 2 of the Convention.
Therefore, it is inaccurate to say there are 42 globally accredited UNESCO World Heritage sites.
The diagram below shows some countries and the total number of heritage sites they have.
A screenshot of the countries with the highest number of UNESCO World Heritage sites. Photo source: Geographyhost.
But how many UNESCO World Heritage sites are situated in Ghana?
The UNESCO World Heritage Convention currently lists two properties in Ghana. Both are classified as cultural properties.
The first is Forts and Castles, located in the Volta, Greater Accra, Central, and Western Regions, which was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1979. UNESCO describes it as a serial property comprising historic castles, forts, and other remains of fortified trading posts along Ghana’s coast.
UNESCO’s description lists Ghana’s first property as comprising three castles, 15 forts, four forts partially in ruins, four ruins with visible structures, and two sites with traces of former fortifications.
The second is the Asante Traditional Buildings, inscribed in 1980. UNESCO describes these buildings near Kumasi as the surviving material testimony of the traditional architecture of the Asante Kingdom.
UNESCO’s documentation describes the Asante Traditional Buildings property as including shrines and other historical structures.
Therefore, Ghana does not have 32 UNESCO World Heritage sites. It has two properties on the World Heritage List, and some of those properties contain multiple individual heritage structures.
Conclusion
Kyerematen’s claim that Ghana has 32 UNESCO World Heritage sites is false. UNESCO’s official records show that Ghana has two properties inscribed on the World Heritage List.
