Maritime Region

Maritime Region dominates Togo's economy through geographic inevitability: the Port of Lomé offers West Africa's only deep-water harbor that can accommodate ships without lighterage, a natural advantage that German colonizers recognized when they made this their capital in 1897. Today the port handles 30.6 million tonnes annually (2024), including 2 million TEUs of containers, serving as the gateway for landlocked Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. Phosphate deposits (30 million metric tons of reserves) provide Togo's largest export, mined at the coast since the 1960s. The region concentrates everything—government, commerce, industry—creating a primate city effect where Lomé holds over 2 million residents (25% of national population) while driving 70%+ of formal GDP. The Adétikopé industrial platform (fully operational 2024, 15+ units, 2,000 jobs) represents efforts to diversify beyond phosphate extraction. With national GDP at $9.8 billion (2024) and 6.5% growth, Maritime Region captures most gains while other regions provide agricultural commodities and labor. By 2026, the Lomé-Cotonou corridor upgrade and port expansion will reinforce the region's dominance—concentrating development even as planners attempt to decentralize.