Togo Research Paper

Togo 's sandwiches

History and Geography

Between the 11th and the 16th century Togo was populated by many tribes like the Bantu.In 1884 Togo was persuaded by Gustav Nachtigal to accept Germany 's protection. When many of the major tribes agreed, Europe officially recognized it a German colony in 1885. The Germans decided to call it togoland. In 1897 they established Lome as the capital of the colony. Soon after they started to use African forced labour to work rubber, palm, cotton and cocoa plantations. In 1914 World War 1 started, Togo and Cameroon(both controlled by Germany) were sandwiched in between British and French colonies. Germany lost both Togo and Cameroon in early 1916 to Britain and France. “The League of Nations mandate

All are living languages. Of these, 40 are indigenous and 4 are non-indigenous. Furthermore, 4 are institutional, 22 are developing, 16 are vigorous.”(ethnologue.com). There are 44 different languages in Togo but their country 's language is recognized as French. Due to its poverty rate of 81.2% the average lifespan is 56 years old compared to America 's 78 years old. An important demographic for me is Togo 's lack of education. The adult literacy in Togo is under 60% and child labor is 30% of all labor. The lack of education is one reason why the poverty rate is so high. Religion is a big part of the culture, and they use it to cope with their poverty. “The most recent statistics indicate that about 47% of the population are Christian. Of these, nearly 28% are Catholic. About 14% of the population are Sunni Muslim. Nearly 33% practice a variety of traditional indigenous religions or other faiths, including Vodoun (Voodoo), which is believed to have originated in the region that is now Togo.”(Thomson

The 2nd biggest export is cement, accounting for 13% of the 1.8billion dollars of export. 36% of the cement they made is exported to Burkina Faso, 30% to Niger, and 11% to Benin. In the mid 1960’s the HeidelbergCement company started to make cement in togo, they make 1.5 million tons of cement each year with an annual revenue of 13.2billion(13208400000.00) dollars. One of these plants is located near the town of Tabligbo, around 50 miles to the northeast of Lome.”Common materials used to manufacture cement include limestone, shells, and chalk or marl combined with shale, clay, slate, blast furnace slag, silica sand, and iron ore. These ingredients, when heated at high temperatures form a rock-like substance that is ground into the fine powder that we commonly think of as cement”(cement.org). Togo gets most of the materials from mines in togo but a small portion is