Togo is a territory of West Africa, formerly a Germanic colony. It is a strip of territory that goes inland from the coast of the Gulf of Guinea for 550 km. with an average width of 175 km. It borders to the West with the British Gold Coast, to the North and to the East. with French West Africa (Dahomey, Colony of Niger and Ivory Coast). The surface is 89,941 sq km. (like Portugal). Togo includes a small section (50 km.) Of the Costa degli Slave, low, sandy, bordered by lagoons, without visible communication with the sea, closed by mangrove formations. Behind the lagoons there is a coastal terrace of 70-80 m. high, formed by clay and red lateritic sands, covered by steppe, and, after this, a sublittoral depressed area, swampy but fertile, where the taro is cultivated, cassava, maize, banana and oil palm. Towards the north the territory then gradually rises, until it reaches almost 1000 m. in Monte Agu, the culminating point of a complex of mountains formed by crystalline schists, quartzites, granites, gabbros and Paleozoic and Cretaceous sandstones. Proceeding further north, the terrain descends again, and the extreme northern part of Togo is mainly low and flat.
The Volta, on the border with the Gold Coast, its tributary Oti and the Mono, which in its lower course marks the border with Dahomey, are the major waterways of Togo.
The climate is hot and humid in the coastal region, with two rainy seasons (March-June, with a maximum in June, and September-November) and two dry seasons (December-February and July-August). Inland there is only one clear dry season and one rainy season (April-October). Overall, the rains are increasing from the south (700-800 mm.) To the north, up to the central mountainous region, where up to 1650 mm falls; then they decrease again.
Yearbook 2005
Togo. According to countryaah, Lome is the capital and one of the major cities within the country of Togo. President Gnassingbé Eyadéma died in a heart attack on February 5. He turned 69 and was the African leader who reigned for the longest time. He took power in a coup in 1967. The military leadership hastily appointed his son Faure Gnassingbé as successor on the grounds that he wanted to guard law and order and avoid a power vacuum. The President of Parliament, who, according to the constitution, would have been appointed acting head of state, was prevented from returning from a foreign trip.
- Also see abbreviationfinder.org for how the acronym TG stands for the country of Togo and other meanings of this two-letter abbreviation.
The coup was condemned unison by the outside world, but a swiftly convened parliament changed the constitution so that the change of power could be approved retroactively and new elections should not be held. The West African Economic Cooperation Organization ECOWAS suspended Togo, called its ambassadors and introduced arms embargo on the country and a travel ban on a number of its leaders. The African Union also suspended Togo.
The regime closed a series of radio and TV stations linked to the opposition, and the ruling party Collection for Togolese People (RPT) appointed Faure Gnassingbé as its new leader. However, the foreign pressure became so strong that after three weeks he resigned and the new President provisionally assumed the post of head of state. New elections were announced and Gnassingbé won with 60% of the vote over the opposition’s joint candidate Emmanuel Bob-Akitani. However, the election was surrounded by severe unrest that, according to UN estimates, required at least 400 lives. About 45,000 people fled to the neighboring countries from the arduous advances of the army and RPT supporters. However, ECOWAS considered the election fairly fair, whereas EU diplomats reported such gross cheating in Gnassingbee’s favor that the European Parliament refused to acknowledge his victory.
