Bolga Craft Village is the bustling artisan market in Bolgatanga, capital of the Upper East Region — the beating heart of northern Ghana's basketry and straw-craft trade, and the single best place in the country to buy the famous "Bolga basket." **The Craft Village (Bolga Market Craft Centre)** The craft village sits within and around Bolgatanga's main market area, where hundreds of weavers, leatherworkers and smock-makers display their wares. It is most alive on **Bolgatanga Market Day** — traditionally every third day in the local cycle, which falls on a rotating basis — when villagers from surrounding communities (Zuarungu, Paga, Bongo, Tongo, Navrongo) bring fresh stock in. The signature product is the **Bolga basket**: hand-woven from *veta vera* (elephant grass), dyed with natural and now often commercial colours, with the distinctive leather-wrapped handle that lets it hold heavy loads. You'll also find: - **Zana mats** and woven fans - **Fugu** (the striped hand-woven smock cloth of the North) - **Leather goods** — sandals, bags, pouches from the famed northern tanneries - **Beadwork, calabashes, wood carvings and shea-butter products** Prices are negotiable, and buying directly from the weaver cooperatives (many women-led) means more of the money stays in the community. If you're shipping abroad, the village traders are well used to packing and exporting. **Pottery Centres of the Upper East** Pottery in this region is traditionally women's work, passed down through generations, and several communities are known for it: - **Sirigu** — the most celebrated pottery village in the Upper East, about 30 km from Bolgatanga. Sirigu women potters hand-build pots, bowls and the famous painted *Sirigu* wall-decorated compounds; the Sirigu Women's Organisation for Pottery and Art (SWOPA) runs a visitor centre where you can watch the full process from clay-digging to firing. - **Sumbrungu** and **Zuarungu** — nearby communities with active potters producing cooking pots, water pots and ritual vessels. - **Navrongo and Paga** — smaller pottery traditions tied to household and ceremonial use. The technique is coiling and hand-building (no wheel), sun-dried and then open-fired with grass and dung — the same basic method used across much of West Africa for centuries. Pots serve cooking, water storage, brewing *pito* (millet beer), and ritual purposes. **Practical notes** The best time to visit is the dry season (November–March), and market day for the fullest experience. Bolgatanga is about 160 km north of Tamale and reachable by road; the craft village is walkable from central Bolga. Bring small cedis for bargaining, and consider a guide if you want to visit Sirigu's pottery centre properly. One proverb fits the trade: *"Onipa nyɛ abɛ dua na ne ho ahyia ne ho"* — a person is not a palm tree that is self-sufficient; the Bolga weaver and the Sirigu potter both live by that truth, trading their hands' work for the community's needs. If you want current opening hours, transport fares from Tamale, or shipping rates for baskets abroad, tell me and I'll search deeper — those change and I'd rather verify than guess.