The Ankobra Gold Route is comprised of an architectural mosaic featuring traditional African buildings, European-built forts, andthe gallant homes and trading centres of wealthy merchants from the past.

In large towns like Axim, there are modern buildings, and urban infrastructure prevails. However it is possible to find important  samples of local architecture built by chiefs and merchants in the nineteenth and twentieth century. The town of Essiama hosts a number of outstanding buildings which in many cases are still well preserved. Important relics of the architectural past of the Region may be found in Dixcove. Awudua has acharming coherent structure built in the course of the twentieth century. The same can be said of Half Assini, while a good number of interesting churches and chief’s palaces may be found in many small towns all over the Nzema, Wassa and Ahanta areas.Small communities along the Ankobra Gold Route, however, tend to have simple houses constructed with locally available items such as mud, thatch and bamboo. These homes tend to have external bathrooms and kitchens.

Axim (Fort St. Anthony: Portuguese, 1515), Butre (Fort Batenstein: Dutch, 1656), Princess Town (Fort Gross Frederichsburg: The Brandenburg Africa Company, 1683),and Beyin (Fort Apollonia: British, 1768) are all home to unique architectural edifices which have witnessed the interaction between the local population and Europeans – including the Dutch - in the Gold Coast, between 1600 and 1900. Their structures have undergone various levels of conservation, to help preserve them for future generations.

Other forts are in ruin, for instance, Akwidaa’s Fort Dorothea (The Brandenburger Company, 1685; Dutch, 1690). The three main forts in the Ankobra Gold Route project, Ruychaver (Dutch, 1654), Duma (Portuguese, 1623), and Elise Carthago (Dutch, early 18th century) cannot be seen today, as they left no traces. However, their sites can still be visited.