Driving Directions Togo
TOGO is a tiny republic with a narrow coastal plain on the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa. It is a thin “fingerlike” country, pushing inland and northwards from the Gulf of Guinea and sandwiched between Ghana and Benin.
Driving Directions
The country nowhere exceeds 125 kilometers or 75 miles in width and extends for about 500 kilometers or 312 miles from north to south. The main feature is a central range of low mountains, the Togo Highlands (700-986 meters or 2,300-3,235 feet), which extend northeast-southwest. High plateaux, mainly in the more southerly fields, are heavily forested with teak, mahogany, and bamboo. Northeast of these lies the Oti plateau and plain covered by savannah grassland and drained by the Oti River.
There is a region of coastal marshes and lagoons with thick mangrove forests in the south and an area of tropical jungle in the southwest. Beyond this to the north, savannah grassland is the primary type of vegetation.
Wildlife species are varied and include birds, monkeys, snakes, crocodiles, hippopotamus, antelope, and lions. Togo has a tropical climate with a significant rainy season from March to July and a minor one from October to November. The north is affected by the dry harmattan wind from the Sahara during December and January.
Over 80 percent of the population is involved in subsistence farming, with yams, cassava, sorghum, and millet as the principal crops. Minerals, particularly phosphates, are now the primary export earners and raw cotton, coffee, cocoa beans, cement, and palm kernels.
Google maps™ Togo
Togo’s dominant physical feature is a chain of low mountains that stretches across the country from southwest to northeast. Several different types of terrain lie to the north and south of these mountains. At the southernmost end is a narrow coastal strip bordered by the low Ouatchi Plateau, which, in turn, gives way to the higher plateau that rises to the mountains. North of the Togo Mountains is yet another plateau, drained by the Oti River and crossed from southwest to northeast by granite escarpments.
Togo is bounded on the south by Benin’s Bight, which is part of the Gulf of Guinea. Togo’s narrow coast is fringed with sandy beaches separated from the rest of the land by lagoons and tidal flats, which give this area a swampy character.
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