Fort Prinzenstein, Colonial fort in Keta, Ghana

Fort Prinzenstein is a square fort with four corner bastions on the sandbar between the Keta Lagoon and the Atlantic. Its stone was shipped from Accra, and it guarded a Danish trading lodge founded in 1745. The sea has destroyed part of the structure since the 1980s.

The Dutch West India Company built Fort Singelenburgh on this site in 1734 and abandoned it in 1737. A Danish trading lodge followed in 1745, and after the Sagbadre War the Danes laid the foundation stone of Fort Prinzenstein on 22 June 1784. Britain bought the fort with the rest of the Danish Gold Coast in 1850 and used it as a prison; the sea has been eroding it since the 1980s.

The fort's name comes from its foundation ceremony on 22 June 1784, when two African princes, Adade of Grand-Popo and Ofoli of Little Popo, laid the cornerstone; Ofoli mixed the mortar. Danish governor Jens Adolf Kjöge attended. Keta was the commercial capital of the Anlo people, and the fort obliged the Anlo to trade only with Denmark.

The fort is located in Keta and is best reached by regional buses from Accra. Tours are available during daylight hours, so planning a morning visit and allowing time to explore the different chambers is helpful.

The fort's name comes from its foundation ceremony on 22 June 1784: Adade, brother of the king of Grand-Popo, laid the cornerstone, while Prince Ofoli of Little-Popo mixed and spread the mortar around it. Governor Jens Adolf Kjöge attended. Because two African princes performed the rite, the Danes called it Prinzenstein, "Prince's Stone".