Lomé

Sister cities

• Shenzhen
• Duisburg
• Taipei

History

The city was founded by the Ewes and expanded in the 19th century by German, British and African traders, becoming the capital of Togoland in 1897. At the end of the 19th century, British customs duties on imported products (especially on alcohol and tobacco) weighed very heavily. The traders, mainly maritime Ewe or Anlo from the area between Aflao and Keta in the east of the British colony of Gold Coast, then looking for an alternative place to unload goods while being out of reach of British customs officers, naturally targeted the coastal site of Lomé, nearby. This commercial dynamic of customs circumvention and tax evasion then favored the expansion of Lomé around 1880. The calm and sparsely inhabited Loméen coastline began to be populated rapidly. The Ewes were soon joined by European, British and especially German companies, as well as itinerant merchants from the interior, such as the Hausa caravans from the cola roads. Many people were attracted by the new economic hub that Lomé represented. The rapid growth of the city was reinforced, and Lomé quickly earned a reputation as a place where good business was done. It was the threats of the British present in the neighboring Gold Coast (now Ghana) that put an end to the competition that Lomé provoked for their colony, which then provoked a call for the protection of Germany. Togoland was thus created as an entity of international law within the German colonial empire on 5 July 1884, by the Treaty of Togoville, signed by Gustav Nachtigal and King . Lomé continued to prosper freely as a centre of import, thus becoming the main gateway to the North, whose major axis of penetration was then the Volta Valley; it was to access it that the construction of the first real road in the country, Lomé-Kpalimé, was undertaken…

Geography

At its creation, the commune of Lomé was wedged between the lagoon to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the south, the village of Bè to the east and the border of Aflao to the west. Today, it has experienced a vertiginous extension, and is bounded by the Togolese Insurance Group (GTA) to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the south, the oil refinery to the east, and the Togo-Ghana border to the west. The agglomeration spreads over an area of 333 km2. including 30 km2. in the lagoon area. The services of the municipality of Lomé go far beyond the limits of the gulf and the municipality to the north and east of the city. Distance between Lomé and the rest of the country's cities Lomé/Tsévié : 35 km Lomé/Aného : 45 km Lomé/Tabligbo : 90 km Lomé/Notsé : 100 km Lomé/Kpalimé : 121 km Lomé/Atakpamé : 167 km Lomé/Blitta : 273 km Lomé/Sokodé : 355 km Lomé/Bafilo : 404 km Lomé/Bassar : 412 km Lomé/Kara : 428 km Lomé/Kandé 503 km Lomé/Mango : 592 km Lomé/Dapaong : 662 km

Most-observed species

• Black Kite

  Milvus migrans (Boddaert, 1783) · Aves
  169
• Laughing Dove

  Spilopelia senegalensis (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  159
• Common Bulbul

  Pycnonotus barbatus (Desfontaines, 1789) · Aves
  147
• Long-tailed Cormorant

  Microcarbo africanus (Gmelin, 1789) · Aves
  136
• Pied Kingfisher

  Ceryle rudis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  118
• Malachite Kingfisher

  Corythornis cristatus (Pallas, 1764) · Aves
  111
• African Jacana

  Actophilornis africanus (J.F.Gmelin, 1789) · Aves
  109
• Slender-billed Weaver

  Ploceus pelzelni (Shelley, 1887) · Aves
  109