Lomé, Kpalimé & the South

Ewe tradition holds that the walled town of Notsé, in the Plateaux region, was the place from which the Ewe scattered in the 17th century to escape the tyranny of King Agokoli, settling across southern Togo and eastern Ghana. On the coast, migrants from the Gold Coast founded the Guin (Gen) towns of Aného and Glidji around the end of the 17th century, and the shore became part of the "Slave Coast", with Aného and its neighbours supplying captives to European ships.

In 1884 the German envoy Gustav Nachtigal signed a protectorate treaty with the chief of Togo, now Togoville, whose name was given to the whole colony. The Germans ruled first from Aného and in 1897 moved the capital to Lomé, then a small trading town. They built a wharf, a cathedral and a governor's palace, and railways from Lomé to Aného, to Kpalimé and towards Atakpamé. Sokodé became a German administrative station in the Tem country of the centre.

After the First World War the south passed to French rule, and Lomé became the capital of independent Togo in 1960. President Sylvanus Olympio was assassinated in the 1963 coup. Faure Gnassingbé has led Togo since 2005, succeeding his father, Gnassingbé Eyadéma. Lomé saw violence after the disputed 2005 election, protests in 2017–18, and in 2025 protests over the 2024 constitution, which moved Togo to a parliamentary system.

The coast is Ewe country, together with the closely related Mina (Gen) of Aného and Lomé and the Ouatchi, and Ewe and Mina are Lomé's everyday languages alongside French. In the hills live the Akposso and Akébou; around Atakpamé the Ana, related to the Yoruba; and in the Centrale region the Tem, or Kotokoli, largely Muslim, whose capital is Sokodé.

Vodun is openly practised alongside Christianity. Shrines stand at village entrances and in Togoville's streets, convents train initiates, and the Akodessewa market supplies healers. The Guin new-year ceremony of Epe Ekpe at Glidji, near Aného, in which priests read the year's fortune from the colour of a sacred stone, draws the Guin diaspora each September. In Sokodé the Tem hold the Adossa, or knife-dance festival, during the Mawlid.

Lomé's market women, the Nana Benz, once famous for trading Dutch wax-print cloth and for their Mercedes-Benz cars, remain a symbol of the capital's commercial culture. Kpalimé is known for its craft centre, founded as an artisans' co-operative in 1966.

Greater Lomé is home to around two million people, a large share of the country's population, stretched along the coast from the Ghana border. Tsévié, Aného, Kpalimé, Atakpamé and Sokodé are the other main towns; Sokodé is often counted as Togo's second city.

The Port of Lomé and the free-trade zone are the centre of the modern economy, with re-export trade to Ghana, Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali. Phosphate is mined at Hahotoé, north of Lake Togo, and loaded at Kpémé. In the Plateaux, coffee and cocoa are grown on small farms around Kpalimé and Badou, and the Centrale region grows maize, yams, cotton and sorghum.

Lomé runs on zémidjans and markets from before dawn; the Grand Marché and the roadside stalls close towards dusk, and evenings move to the maquis, open-air bars, along the beach boulevard. Traffic, flooding in the rains, coastal erosion east of the port and the cost of living are everyday concerns.

Southern Togo eats pâte, a stiff maize-flour dough, and fufu of pounded yam, with sauces of adémè (jute leaves), gboma (a leafy green like spinach), okra, groundnut or palm nut, often with smoked fish, meat, crab or prawns. Ayimolou is rice and beans cooked together, and akpan is a soft, slightly sour ball of fermented maize flour steamed in a banana leaf.

On the coast, fish is grilled or fried, and Lake Togo supplies fish and crab. The Plateaux is yam country, and yams are among the main crops around Atakpamé. Further north, pâte may be made from millet or sorghum as well as maize.

Coffee from the Kpalimé hills is sold locally, and sodabi, the palm-wine spirit, is drunk and used in Vodun libations. Li-ha, a sweet, non-alcoholic drink of malted maize, millet or sorghum, is served cool.

Lomé has the Grand Marché, the Akodessewa fetish market, the Independence Monument, the German-era cathedral and the Palais de Lomé, the former governor's palace, now an arts centre with a park. East of the capital, a pirogue crosses Lake Togo from Agbodrafo to Togoville, with its church, shrines and memories of the 1884 treaty. Aného, further along the coast between lagoon and sea, has faded colonial buildings, and Glidji is nearby.

Kpalimé, north-west of Lomé, sits among the coffee and cocoa hills. Mount Agou, Togo's highest peak at 986 metres, can be climbed or driven, and the Kloto forest, Kouma-Konda and the Château Viale offer walks, butterflies and views over the plains to Ghana. Waterfalls such as Kpimé lie nearby, and further north the Akloa falls are reached from Badou.

The main road north passes Notsé, the Ewe ancestral town with remains of its old wall, and climbs to Atakpamé, a hill town. In the Centrale region, Sokodé has a busy market and mosques, and is the setting of the Adossa festival.