Togo

Togo is a republic located on the west coast of Africa. The country is bounded by Burkina Faso in the north, Benin in the east and Ghana in the west, with access to the Atlantic Ocean. Earliest human settlement pre-dates the fifteenth century with the arrival of the Ewe people, the Mina, and the Guin, from neighbouring regions. The Portuguese explored the coast and later established a fortified trading centre at Porto Seguro (now known as Agbodrafo) in 1834. In 1884, a treaty was signed between chieftain Mlapa III and the German consul Gustav Nachtigal, which established a German protectorate over the region known as Togoland. Following the outbreak of the First World War, Togoland was invaded and occupied by British and French forces which divided it into two administrative zones, British Togoland and French Togoland. The League of Nations confirmed Togoland as mandated territory, and after the Second World War, it became a United Nations trust territory. In 1956, a referendum was held in which residents in British Togoland voted to join the newly independent nation of Ghana, leaving French Togoland to become an autonomous republic in the French Union. The UN trusteeship was formally dissolved and Togo declared its independence from France in 1960. The capital and largest city is Lomé. Estimated population of Togo in 2013 was 7,154,237.