If you’re a Ghanaian living in Ghana, you may have perhaps seen a zillion cars with unique identification number plates. But have you wondered what they mean? Or figure out the genesis/history behind every single letter that precedes the numbers followed by the year of registration?
Basically, these numbers: GT, CR, AS and the rest indicate the region in the car was registered. Also, note that Ghana has no restrictions on the use of number plates in the various regions, for example, a vehicle registered in the Ashanti Region can be used in the Brong-Ahafo Region. And that’s fine.
Ghanaian vehicle license plates consist of a two-letter region code, followed by a four-digit numeric and a two-digit year code. The two-letter region code indicates the region in which the vehicle was registered; the four-digit numeric code is the unique item one can find on a Ghanaian number plate—the digits show the number of vehicles registered in the region in which the vehicle was registered. The year code also tells one the exact year in which the vehicle was registered.
The two-letter region code is the combination of the first letter from the name of the region, and the letter ‘R’ which denotes region; however, four of the ten regions in Ghana: Ashanti, Brong-Ahafo, Upper East and Upper West do not have the letter ‘R’ as part of their region code.
Below are the codes for the various regions in Ghana:
AS, AE, AW: Ashanti Region
BA – Brong-Ahafo
CR – Central Region
ER – Eastern Region
NR – Northern Region
UE – Upper East
UW – Upper West
VR – Volta Region
WR – Western Region
GR, GC, GE, GL, GM, GN, GT, GS, GW, GY, GX: Greater Accra
Ashanti Region and the Greater Accra regions have multiple letters because of the enormous influx of car registrations that happen in those regions. The Driver Vehicle License Authority (DVLA) herein has provided supplementary letters for them.
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