Sokodé

About Sokodé

Sokodé grew rich on trade long before it became a modern city: it sat on the caravan route that carried kola nuts between the Volta lands of present-day Ghana and the markets to the east, and Hausa and Mande merchants settled here beside the Tem, also called Kotokoli. The Germans set up a post in 1897, and the town became the administrative heart of central Togo.

Today Sokodé is Togo's second-largest city, with roughly 120,000 people, and capital of the Centrale Region. Around seven in ten residents are Muslim, which gives the streets a different rhythm from the coast: a mosque beside the Grand Market, horsemen in ceremonial dress on feast days and the famous Gadao-Adossa celebrations with their knife dance.

The city is also a practical base for central Togo's landscapes. Fazao-Malfakassa, the country's largest national park, lies to the west, and the dramatic rock cutting of the Aledjo Fault is a short drive north on the main highway towards Kara.