I started this project because I wanted to analyze the overall connectivity of Ghana related to its existing road network.I began with a shapefile from GADM that was essentially one large shapefile of Ghana. I then selected the GADM file and used QuickOSM to add data regarding primary trunk lines that fit the selected feature. This returned a network of all "primary" trunk lines that were located at least partially in Ghana. I removed portions of the road that crossed the border by clipping the road network over the Ghana GADM shapefile from earlier. I then buffered the remaining lines to cover an area of 5 kilometers on either side of the road. Because the buffer returned multiple overlapping polygons, I used the dissolve tool to create a single layer that showed the true buffer area of the trunk lines throughout the country. Finally, I calculated the area of the trunk line buffer and divided it by the confirmed value of Ghana's area in square kilometers to determine how much of the country's land area was within 5 km of a primary trunk line.

Findings:

The 5 km buffer around Ghana’s primary trunk roads covers approximately 14.5% of the country’s land area. The spatial pattern is highly uneven: the southeastern and south‑central regions show dense trunk‑road coverage, forming a continuous accessibility corridor. In contrast, the northern half of the country contains long stretches with no primary trunk coverage, indicating weaker integration into the national road network when considering this road class alone.