Salaga

Salaga is a town and the capital of the East Gonja district in the Savannah Region of northern Ghana, with a 2012 settlement population of 25,472. It was the largest slave market of the 18th and 19th centuries, and a key market town for the busy regional kola trade; controlling Salaga gave a monopoly over trade to the north and south. After a long series of wars with the Kong Empire the Ashanti reoriented their trade away from Kong, through Salaga, toward the Hausa states. Lying in the southernmost reaches of the Sahel, it was called the Timbuktu of the south for its cosmopolitan population and varied trade. The Gonja kingdom ruled it, and Hausas, Wangaras, Dagombas and Gurmas also lived there. The name comes from the Dagomba word salgi, meaning to get used to a place of abode.