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Togo

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Covering a total area (land and inland water) of 21,925 square miles (56,785 square kilometers), Togo extends 365 miles (587 kilometers) inland, 40 miles (64 kilometers) wide at the coast and 90 miles (145 kilometers) wide at its widest point. It is bordered by Ghana, Burkina Faso, and Benin.|

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Togo's dominant physical feature is a chain of low mountains that stretches across the country from southwest to northeast. Several different types of terrain lie to the north and south of these mountains. At the southernmost end is a narrow coastal strip, bordered by the low Ouatchi Plateau, which, in turn, gives way to the higher plateau that rises to the mountains. North of the Togo Mountains is yet another plateau, drained by the Oti River and crossed from southwest to northeast by granite escarpments.|

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Thursday announced a Pentagon review of the shootings at Ford Hood, Tex., to help ensure, he said, that ''nothing like this ever happens again.'' A former Army secretary, Togo West, and Adm. Vern Clark, the...|

The U.S. embassy is located at Rue Pelletier and Rue Vauban, Lome (tel: 21-29-91/94). The mailing address is B.P. 852, Lome, Togo (international mail) and Lome, Department of State, Washington, D.C. 20521-2300 (by diplomatic pouch).|

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After World War II, the mandate became a UN trust territory administered by the United Kingdom and France. During the mandate and trusteeship periods, Western Togo was administered as part of the British Gold Coast. In 1957, the residents of British Togoland voted to join the Gold Coast as part of the new independent nation of Ghana.|

Togo pursues an active foreign policy and participates in many international organizations. It is particularly active in West African regional affairs and in the Organization of African Unity. Relations between Togo and neighboring states are generally good.|

Private property exists in Togo alongside traditional community custodianship, and land is bought and sold under both systems. Private ownership of land began during the German period, as small parcels were purchased for commerce and for missions. The French continued this policy of gentle aggrandizement, but post-independence this was complicated by the president's illegal seizure and redistribution of plantations owned by his opponents. Thus, much land in the south, and particularly in the capital Lomé, remains the site of intense litigation, which takes place in the civil courts. Warnings are often written in red on the walls of land parcels to deter sale or deception.|

The population of Togo is estimated by the United Nations to be 5 million in 2000, with growth at approximately 3.5 percent per annum (though the last government census dates from 1981). One fifth of the population lives in Lomé, the capital. Kara, the second largest city, has approximately two hundred thousand inhabitants. Population density reached 42 per square mile (67 per square kilometer) in 1991, with 75 percent in rural villages.|

Marriage practices vary throughout Togo according to the ethnic group, though organized religions and the State have altered the ceremonies of even the most secluded villages. Social disapproval of ethnic exogamy is lessening, though the government unofficially discourages it. Marriage law follows French legal statutes and requires an appearance before a magistrate for all state apparatuses to be in effect. Customary marriages, without state sanction, are still widespread. A bride-wealth, but not a dowry, remains important throughout Togo. Polygyny is officially decreasing, though unofficial relationships uphold its role.|

Togo consists of six geographical regions. The coastal region is low-lying, sandy beach backed by the Tokoin plateau, a marsh, and the Lake Togo lagoon. The Tokoin (Ouatchi) Plateau extends about 20 miles (32 kilometers) inland at an elevation of 200 to 300 feet (61 to 91 meters). To the northeast, a higher tableland is drained by the Mono, Haho, Sio, and tributaries. The Atakora massif stretches diagonally across Togo from the town of Kpalime northeast; at different points it is known as the Danyi and Akposso Plateau, Fetish massif, Fazao mountain, Tchaoudjo massif, and Kabye mountains. The highest point is the Pic d'Agou at 3,937 feet (986 meters). North of the mountain range is the Oti plateau, a savanna land drained by the river of the same name. A higher, semi-arid region extends to the northern border.|

European presence began in the fifteenth century and became permanent from the sixteenth. Though the Danish, Dutch, Spanish, British, German, and French all sailed the coastal region, the Portuguese were the first to establish local economic control. For the next three centuries the area that is Togo today was sandwiched between the two powerful slave trading kingdoms of Ashanti and Dahomey. Consequently the Togolese population was overrepresented among those unfortunates sold into the trans-Atlantic slave trade. During the same period a growing Arab controlled trans-Saharan trade in slaves, kola, and gold passed through Togo.|

The population of the central mountains is perhaps the oldest in Togo, with recent archeological research dating the presence of the Tchamba, Bogou, and Bassar people as far back as the ninth century. Northern Mossi kingdoms date back to the thirteenth century. Ewe migration narratives from Nigeria and archaeological finds in the region of Notse put the earliest appearance of Ewe speakers at c. 1600. Other research suggests the Kabye and others were the last to settle in the Kara region coming from Kete-Krachi in Ghana as recently as two hundred fifty years ago. Parts of north Togo were for a long time under the influence of Islamic kingdoms, such as that of Umar Tal of the nineteenth century.|

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