Atakpamé is the city of seven hills: a regional capital perched on green ridges overlooking the Mono River plain, in the heart of the Plateaux Region. With its cooler climate, bustling market and panoramic views, it is one of the most pleasant stops on the road from Lomé to northern Togo, and a handy base for exploring the centre of the country.
Founded by Ana and Ifè peoples fleeing the wars of the Kingdom of Dahomey, Atakpamé later became a key outpost of the German colony (nearby, in Kamina, the Germans built a famous radio station that was blown up in 1914) and today it is a lively commercial and administrative centre. From here you can reach the Nangbéto reservoir, where hippos surface at dawn and dusk, and the mountainous west around Badou, with its Aklowa waterfall.
This guide takes a practical look at Atakpamé: what to see in the city and its hills, how to organise the trip to Nangbéto to see hippos, how to use it as a springboard to Badou, where to sleep and eat, and how to get around this crossroads in central Togo. A stopover town that, given a day or two, turns out to be far more interesting than its reputation as a mere layover would suggest.
Atakpamé was born as a refuge town: throughout the 18th century, Ana and Ifè peoples of Yoruba origin settled in these hills to escape the armies of the Kingdom of Dahomey, seeking protection and good farmland in the rugged terrain. Under German colonial rule it became a strategic crossroads (nearby, in Kamina, a powerful wireless radio station operated in 1914, linking Togoland with Berlin; the Germans themselves dynamited it when they lost the First World War) and later an administrative centre of the French mandate. Today it is the prosperous capital of the Plateaux, a trading town and gateway to the centre of the country.
Read the full history ↓Green Togo of coffee and cocoa plantations and waterfalls: wooded hills that were home to Notsé, the Ewe cradle, and where the Germans built the Kamina radio station near Atakpamé.
Read the history of Plateaux Region →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Atakpamé was born of war and the need for refuge. Throughout the 18th century, peoples of Yoruba origin known as the Ana and the Ifè — related to the great Yoruba kingdoms of present-day Nigeria and Benin — moved westwards, fleeing the military expansion of the powerful Kingdom of Dahomey (Danhomè), which subjugated and enslaved neighbouring peoples. They sought protection in the rugged terrain of central Togo and settled on a group of hills overlooking the plain of the Mono River: there they founded Atakpamé, the 'city of seven hills'.
The location was no accident. The hills offered natural defence, a clear view of the surrounding area and fertile land that was somewhat cooler than the plain. The newcomers mixed with local populations and with Ewe and Kabyè groups, giving Atakpamé a mixed, trading character from the very start. The Ana-Ifè language, of Yoruba roots, is still one of the city's main languages today, living evidence of that migratory origin.
This status as a refuge city and a crossroads of peoples shaped Atakpamé's personality: a meeting point between the Ewe south, the Yoruba world to the east and the centre of the country, with an early vocation for trade. Even before the Europeans arrived, the city was an exchange point on the routes linking the coast with the interior, along which agricultural produce, textiles, salt and enslaved people circulated, within the pre-colonial economies of West Africa.
In 1884, Germany established the protectorate of Togoland over this strip of West Africa, and Atakpamé, thanks to its strategic position in the centre of the territory, became the seat of an administrative 'cercle' (district) and a key point in the colonial network. The Germans built roads and a railway line into the interior, and promoted export crops — coffee, cocoa, cotton — in the fertile Plateaux region. Atakpamé grew as the colony's administrative and commercial centre.
The most famous episode of that era took place a few kilometres from the city, at Kamina. Between 1911 and 1914, the German firm Telefunken built a large wireless telegraphy station there, on some 4 km² bought from local chiefs with the help of the Atakpamé cercle administration: an extremely powerful radio transmitting centre, with enormous antennas, designed to link the colony directly with the home country. From 1 April 1914, the Kamina station connected in a straight line with Nauen, near Berlin, 5.200 km away, and southwards with Windhoek, in present-day Namibia, forming part of the German empire's global communications network in Africa.
This technological jewel had a very short life. When the First World War broke out in August 1914, Togoland was caught between Allied colonies: the French advanced from the east (Dahomey) and the British from the west (the Gold Coast, present-day Ghana). Unable to defend it, the Germans decided to destroy their own station so it would not fall into enemy hands: on the night of 24 to 25 August 1914 they dynamited the Kamina installations, and on 27 August they surrendered. It was one of the first German capitulations of the war, and today the ruins of Kamina are a historic site claimed as part of Atakpamé's heritage.
After the German defeat, Togoland was divided in 1919–1922 between France and Britain under a League of Nations mandate. Atakpamé fell in the eastern part, administered by France, and remained an important regional centre: the head of a district, a market town and a station on the railway running up from Lomé. The French maintained the region's plantation economy — coffee, cocoa, cotton — and the city kept growing as a market and service hub for the whole farming area of the Plateaux.
During the decades of the mandate, Atakpamé developed its modern urban fabric: schools, Christian missions, markets, commercial districts. Its population, already diverse since its refuge-city days, was enriched by civil servants, traders and workers from different regions of the country, consolidating its role as a crossroads. Like the rest of Togo, the city also took part in the post-war political and nationalist awakening that would lead to independence.
On 27 April 1960, French Togo gained independence, and Atakpamé became one of the regional capitals of the new country. With the administrative reorganisation, it became the capital of the Plateaux Region, one of Togo's five major regions, and the main urban centre of the south-centre, a role it still holds today.
The Plateaux region is one of the most productive in Togo, and Atakpamé, at its heart, works as its economic capital: the market for agricultural produce from the whole area — coffee, cocoa, cotton, yams, maize, fruit — and home to shops, banks and administration. Its big Wednesday and Saturday markets draw producers and traders from dozens of villages, and the city lives largely off that commercial bustle and its position as a hub on National Road 1.
The most important economic and environmental landmark in the surrounding area is the Nangbéto hydroelectric dam on the Mono River, opened in 1987. It is a binational project between Togo and Benin, managed by the Communauté Électrique du Bénin (CEB), designed to supply both countries with power and to control the Mono's floods. The dam created a huge reservoir of about 180 km², which transformed the landscape east of Atakpamé and, over time, became an unexpected natural attraction.
Today this artificial lake is a refuge for hippos and a rich variety of birdlife, and it hosts one of the region's most popular excursions: canoe trips at sunrise or sunset to spot the great aquatic mammals. So a piece of infrastructure built to produce electricity ended up also creating an ecotourism resource that complements Atakpamé's traditional economy, which is increasingly keen to draw visitors to its hills, its reservoir and the neighbouring mountainous west around Badou.
Today Atakpamé is Togo's fifth-largest city, with around 90.000 inhabitants, and one of the most pleasant in the interior. Its hilly terrain, milder climate and commercial buzz give it a character of its own within the country. It is a crossroads: almost all traffic heading north from Lomé passes through it, the road to the mountainous west around Badou starts here, and farmers from the whole region come here to buy and sell.
Travellers will find Atakpamé a comfortable, well-connected base. The city has stopover hotels, maquis where you can eat well and cheaply, a lively market and viewpoints from which to watch the sun set over the Mono plain. It is also the starting point for the area's two big excursions: the Nangbéto reservoir, with its hippos, and Badou and the Aklowa waterfall, among cocoa plantations, to the west.
Atakpamé also keeps the traces of its history: the memory of the Ana-Ifè refuge city, the ruins of the German station at Kamina, colonial-era architecture and its role as capital of the Plateaux. A city of seven hills, markets and crossroads, it sums up the character of central Togo well: mixed, commercial, green and strategic, a place made of encounters and roads.
