Historically, modern Ghanaian territory was the core of the Empire of Ashanti (or Asante), which was one of the most advanced states in sub-Sahara Africa in the 18th to 19th centuries, before colonial rule. It is said that at its peak, the king of Ashanti could field 500,000 troops.
For most of central sub-Saharan Africa, agricultural expansion marked the period before 500. Farming began earliest on the southern tips of the Sahara, eventually giving rise to village settlements. Toward the end of the classical era, larger regional kingdoms had formed in West Africa, one of which was the Kingdom of Ghana, north of what is today the nation of Ghana. Before its fall at the beginning of the 10th century Akan migrants moved southward and founded several nation-states, including the first great Akan empire of the Bono founded in the 11th century and for which the Brong-Ahafo Region of Akanland is named. Later Akan groups such as the Ashanti federation and Fante states are thought to possibly have roots in the original Bono settlement at Bono manso. Much of the area was united under the Empire of Ashanti by the 16th century. The Ashanti government operated first as a loose network and eventually as a centralized kingdom with an advanced,