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TOGO >>Population / Climate / Geography / Benevolat/ Action2005 |
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Togo was estimated at 4,629,000 in 2000. With an annual
growth rate of 2.7%, the population is estimated at 4,999,415
in 2003. Lomé is the capital city.
There are other major populated cities: Sokode, Kara, Atakpame,
Tsevie, Dapaong, Bassar, Kpalime, Aneho, and Mango. In
Togo, 33% of the population are Animists; 47% are Christians;
and 14% are Muslims. For the monotheist religions, in the
south, most of the Ewe, Guen, Ouatchi, Akposso, and Ife-Ana
ethnic groups are Catholics and Protestants. In the north,
most of the Kabiye, Losso, and Lamba are Catholics and
Protestants, but the Cotocoli, Bassar, Konkomba, Tchamba,
Anoufo, and Moba are primarily Muslims. The
Togolese territory is divided economically into five regions
and administratively into 30 prefectures. The five economic
regions are: the Maritime region, the Plateaux region, the
Central region, the Kara region, and the Savanna region. Although
Togo has some 40 ethnic groups, 3 dominate the population.
These are the Ewe, the Kabiye, and the Gourma groups. The Ewe
group, including the Ouatchi and Guen subgroups, represents
40%- 45% of the entire population. They live in the Maritime
region and a large part of the plateau region. The Kabiye,
Cotocoli and Losso groups represent 25% of the Togolese
population. The Kabiye, who represent more than 50% of the
Kabiye group, are mostly located in the Kara region. The
Gourma group represents 14% of the total population of Togo
and is dominated by the Moba, followed by the Gourma, the
Bassar, and the Konkomba groups. Togo's
prehistory and early history were marked by the migrations of
various African peoples: pre-historic Sangoan hunting and
gathering clans who settled in central and southern Togo;
people from the Sudan-Nile region who came to the north in the
10th-13th centuries; the Ewes and other groups from Nigeria
who migrated between the 14th and 16th centuries; the Mina and
other people from Ghana; and the Cotocoli and other ethnic
groups from Burkina Faso who came in the 17th century. The
boundaries of these kingdoms extended beyond present-day Togo.
The
Portuguese, the first Europeans to explore the Togolese coast,
came in the late 1400s. Between 1600 and 1800, Brazilian,
British, and other slave traders raided the coast and later
the interior. Togo became part of what was known as the Slave
Coast. German traders and missionaries reached Togo in the
mid-1800s. In 1884, Germany set up a small coastal
protectorate, gradually moved inland, and developed the social
and economic infrastructure so successfully that Togo became
its sole self-supporting colony. From 1885 to 1914 Lomé was
the administrative and commercial center of German Togo (called
Togoland), which included what is now Togo and the Volta
region (now part of Ghana). In
1914, Britain and France jointly invaded and took control of
Togo. After World War I, Togo came under a League of Nations
mandate and was divided into British and French Togo. The U.N.
took over the mandate in 1946. Social and economic
repercussions of the British-French trusteeship, particularly
the splitting of the Ewe and other ethnic groups and their
territories, continue to be felt. In
late 1956, French Togo voted for status as an autonomous
republic within the French Union; the British-ruled people of
the Volta region opted to join Ghana, which became independent
in 1957. On April 27, 1960, French Togo gained full
independence from France. Although
Western contact has affected the life and outlook in the towns,
much of the countryside remains less affected. Traditional
animist culture, and the customs peculiar to it, continues
strongly to influence the Westernized population. Polygamy is
widely practiced in rural areas and even in Lomé and other
towns. As in the rest of Africa, Togolese life centers on the
extended family, which includes those far from the immediate
family circle. Loyalties reach out beyond the family to the
clan. Traditional mudbrick homes and communal wells give way,
in urban areas, to more modern housing and facilities. However,
walled courtyards as centers of family life, cooking with
charcoal or wood fires, and communal piped-water taps with the
customary social life they create, are still common. Complex
traditional women's hairstyles and dress for both men and
women provide interesting contrasts to European fashions.
Western
culture and Christianity have had the greatest influence in
the south, the area that traditionally has been the source of
most government officials, teachers, journalists, office
workers, artisans, and traders. Recently, however, more
northerners have become civil servants and professionals
through an active effort to rectify past disparities. The literacy rate in Togo is 51%. There are about 50 African dialects spoken. French is the official language, as well as the language of commerce. Some people also speak English and German. The government has a policy of developing two national languages-Kabiye and Ewe as languages of instruction. Some broadcasting (both radio and TV) is done in these languages. The principal native languages are Ewe and Mina in the south, and Kabiye and Haousa in the north. |
Togo, a country of 21,853 square miles, about the size
of West Virginia, stretches 370 miles from north to south and
averages 56 miles in width. It is bounded on the west by
Ghana, on the east by Benin, on the north by Burkina Faso, and
the south by the Bight of Benin on the Atlantic Ocean. Lagoons
cross the country to the southeast, separating the mile-wide
sandbar along the Bight of Benin from the geographical
mainland. To the southwest a low plateau gradually rises,
followed by a southwest-northeast mountain range that is from
2,300 to 3,300 feet high. Another plateau lies to the north of
the mountain chain, and beyond that, high hills rise in the
northeast. An open savanna then unfolds and extends to the
Burkina Faso border. Togo
has no navigable rivers, but several rivers have the potential
for irrigation, which the Togolese are beginning to exploit.
The country’s most fertile areas are in and around the
mountain range; the northern savannas are the poorest. Savanna-type
vegetation dominates. Large
trees, including the baobab, common in the south, are rarer in
the north. Mangrove and reed swamps dot the coastal region,
and coconut plantations grow along the sea. Some
deer, antelope, buffalo, warthogs, and hippopotamuses roam the
north, and hippos and crocodiles can be found in the southeast.
Togo's most common animal life includes monkeys, snakes,
lizards, and birds. Chickens,
sheep, goats, pigs, guineafowl, and a few other domestic
animals are kept in the city as well as the rural areas. There
are protected forest game preserves at Fazoa and Keran, in the
central and savanna regions.
The
country is divided climatically into southern and northern
zones. The southern tropical average temperatures fluctuate
between 70°F and 80°F , with February and March
the hottest months, and June, July, and August the coolest.
Humidity is high (80%-90%) most of the year. The major dry
season extends from the end of November to the end of March;
August and early September are also sometimes quite dry. Equatorial
conditions in the mountains of Togo support the country’s
only rain forest. Northern
temperatures fluctuate between 65°F and over 100°F, and
humidity is less than in the south. The northern zone has one
rainy and one dry season. In December-January, a cool, dry,
dust-laden "harmattan" wind from the Sahara sweeps
across the land.
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