Church of the Province of West Africa
Intro
The Church of the Province of West Africa is an Anglican province spanning eight countries in West Africa and was formed in 1951 from a group of earlier dioceses that had grown out of missionary work in the region. It remains a multinational church, with Ghana as its largest national component, and is part of the wider Anglican Communion.
Structure
The province is organized episcopally through dioceses, and Wikipedia's structure summary says those dioceses are grouped into two internal provinces: Ghana and West Africa. The primate serves the whole church, while each internal province has its own metropolitan archbishop.
This arrangement reflects the church's multinational footprint: Ghana contains the majority of the dioceses, while the second internal province links dioceses across the province's other West African member countries.
| Internal province | Dioceses listed on Wikipedia | Territory |
|---|---|---|
| Ghana | 11 | Accra, Asante Mampong, Cape Coast, Ho, Koforidua, Kumasi, Sekondi, Sunyani, Tamale, Wiawso, Dunkwa-on-Offin |
| West Africa | 6 | Bo, Cameroon, Freetown, Gambia, Guinea, Liberia |
Source(s)
Source: No clearly free current portrait of Cyril Kobina Ben-Smith was located in Wikimedia Commons or another clearly free repository reviewed for this task, so this figure uses the ECOWAS flag from Wikimedia Commons as a temporary regional placeholder. The file is marked public domain there.
Source: Intro adapted from the Wikipedia article "Church of the Province of West Africa". Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Source: Structure section adapted from the "Structure" and "Dioceses and bishops" sections of the Wikipedia article "Church of the Province of West Africa". Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Title image uses the flag of ECOWAS from Wikimedia Commons as a free regional fallback because no clearly free province logo, seal, or coat of arms was confirmed in the sources reviewed here. The file is marked public domain there.