Fort Coenraadsburg is a small fort opposite Elmina Castle in Ghana's Central Region. It was built on the site of a fortified Portuguese chapel dedicated to Saint Jago, and its purpose was to protect Fort Elmina. After the Dutch burned the chapel in the 1637 Battle of Elmina, they built an earthwork the next year.
In the 1660s the Director General J. Valckenburgh replaced it with a permanent fort of local sandstone. It was built for military purposes and had no commercial warehouses. The Dutch used it as a prison for European convicts, and they ceded it to Britain in 1872.
It later served as a prison, a hospital and a rest house. Today it operates as an inn and restaurant. UNESCO inscribed it in 1979.
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