Aflao | |
---|---|
Coordinates: 06°08′48.4″N01°10′47.6″E / 6.146778°N 1.179889°E Coordinates: 06°08′48.4″N01°10′47.6″E / 6.146778°N 1.179889°E | |
Country | Ghana |
Region | Volta Region |
District | Ketu South District |
Population (2012) | |
• Total | 66,546 [1] |
Ranked 28th in Ghana | |
Time zone | GMT |
• Summer (DST) | GMT |
Area code | +233 (3625) |
Aflao is a town in Ketu South District in the Volta Region on Ghana's border with Togo. Aflao is the twenty-eighth most populous settlement in Ghana, in terms of population, with a population of 96,550 people. [1]
In the 18th century, Aflao served as one of the major markets for the slave trade. Aflao is shared by Ghana and Togo, causing the land to be split into Aflao of Ghana and Aflao of Togo. The culture of this land is based on their clothes, called Kente or kete. Their local music is Agbadja and Brekete. Ghanaian authorities plan to create a common post at Aflao.
Aflao people were war refugees of Phla extraction from Grand Popo in Benin. The exodus from Grand Popo was the result of the Wars by the Kingdom of Dahomey for access to the Atlantic seaboard and European trading forts along the coast of Benin and Togo. Other war refugees who were of GaDangme extraction and displaced by the Akwamu wars also settled in Aflao. The GaDangme settled in the suburbs of Teshie, Gbugbla and Batorme. Constant skirmishes with the Bes of Togo for land and fishing rights compelled some of the Ga Dangme to relocate to Agortime area to join their kinsmen there.
Ewe Fla:wo Phla/ Phera people
Aflao is located on the eastern coast of Ghana and is the major border town with neighboring Togo.
Aflao - Ghana as a traditional area has Togbui Amenya Fiti V as its Paramount Chief. [3] He is the traditional ruler of the land and performs traditional administrative and ceremonial functions in the area. Aflao - Togo has a different chief because of the different villages on this land. Aflao has an education school on the border of Lomé that teaches Ewe, the local language of Aflao. [4]
The Diamond Cement Ghana Limited factory is located at Aflao. [5] [6]
In early 2014, a 2.5 km rail siding was completed to connect the cement works to the port of Lomé. [7] This siding crosses the border from Togo to Ghana and is of the 1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in) gauge.
There is public transportation from Aflao to major cities such as Accra, Kumasi, Techiman, Mim, Ahafo, Sunyani, Takoradi, Tema, Ho, Wa, Bolgatanga, and Elubo.
Togo, officially the Togolese Republic, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, where its capital, Lomé, is located. It covers about 57,000 square kilometres with a population of approximately 8 million, and has a width of less than 115 km (71 mi) between Ghana and its eastern neighbor Benin.
Lomé is the capital and largest city of Togo. It has an urban population of 837,437 while there were 1,477,660 permanent residents in its metropolitan area as of the 2010 census. Located on the Gulf of Guinea at the southwest corner of the country, with its entire western border along the easternmost point of Ghana's Volta Region, Lomé is the country's administrative and industrial center, which includes an oil refinery. It is also the country's chief port, from where it exports coffee, cocoa, copra, and oil palm kernels.
The Kwa languages, often specified as New Kwa, are a proposed but as-yet-undemonstrated family of languages spoken in the south-eastern part of Ivory Coast, across southern Ghana, and in central Togo. The name was introduced 1895 by Gottlob Krause and derives from the word for 'people' (Kwa) in many of these languages, as illustrated by Akan names.
Gen is a Gbe language spoken in the southeast of Togo in the Maritime Region. Like the other Gbe languages, Gen is a tonal language.
The Aja also spelled Adja are an ethnic group native to south-western Benin and south-eastern Togo. According to oral tradition, the Aja migrated to southern Benin in the 12th or 13th century from Tado on the Mono River, and c. 1600, three brothers, Kokpon, Do-Aklin, and Te-Agbanlin, split the ruling of the region then occupied by the Aja amongst themselves: Kokpon took the capital city of Great Ardra, reigning over the Allada kingdom; Do-Aklin founded Abomey, which would become capital of the Kingdom of Dahomey; and Te-Agbanlin founded Little Ardra, also known as Ajatche, later called Porto Novo by Portuguese traders and the current capital city of Benin.
The Gbe languages form a cluster of about twenty related languages stretching across the area between eastern Ghana and western Nigeria. The total number of speakers of Gbe languages is between four and eight million. The most widely spoken Gbe language is Ewe, followed by Fon. The Gbe languages were traditionally placed in the Kwa branch of the Niger–Congo languages, but more recently have been classified as Volta–Niger languages. They include five major dialect clusters: Ewe, Fon, Aja, Gen (Mina), and Phla–Pherá.
The Dangbe language, also Dangbe or Adaŋgbi, is a Kwa language spoken in south-eastern Ghana by the Dangbe People (Dangbeli). The Dangbeli are part of the larger Ga-Dangbe ethnic group. Klogbi is a variant, spoken by the Kloli. Kropp Dakubu (1987) is the most thorough grammar of the language.
The Phla–Pherá (Xwla–Xwela) languages form a possible group of Gbe languages spoken mainly in southeastern and southwestern Benin; some communities are found in southeastern Togo and southwestern Nigeria. The group, comprising about ten varieties, was introduced by H.B. Capo in his 1988 classification of Gbe languages as one of the five main branches of Gbe. Additional research carried out by SIL International in the nineties corroborated many of Capo's findings and led to adjustment of some of his more tentative groupings; in particular, Phla–Pherá was divided in an eastern and a western cluster. Phla–Pherá is one of the smaller Gbe branches in terms of number of speakers. It is also the most linguistically diverse branch of Gbe, due partly to the existence of several geographically separated communities, but mainly because of considerable influence by several non-Gbe languages in the past. Some of the Phla–Pherá peoples are thought to be the original inhabitants of the region having intermingled with Gbe immigrants.
The Ewe people are a Gbe-speaking ethnic group. The largest population of Ewe people is in Ghana, and the second largest population is in Togo. They speak the Ewe language which belongs to the Gbe family of languages. They are related to other speakers of Gbe languages such as the Fon, Gen, Phla Phera, Gun, Maxi, and the Aja people of Togo, Benin and southwestern Nigeria.
Akatsi is a small town and is the capital of Akatsi South District, a district in the Volta Region of Ghana.
Ghana is a multilingual country in which about eighty languages are spoken. Of these, English, which was inherited from the colonial era, is the official language and lingua franca. Of the languages indigenous to Ghana, Akan is the most widely spoken in the south. Dagbani is most widely spoken in the north.
The strains in Ghana–Togo relations stretch back to pre-independence days.
The railway stations in Ghana serve a rail network concentrated in the south of the country.
Railway stations in Togo include:
The Aja language is a Gbe language spoken by the Aja people of Benin, Togo, Ghana, Nigeria and Gabon. In Gabon, they are mostly migrants.
Rail transport in Togo consists of 568 km (353 mi) (2014) of 1,000 mmmetre gauge railway.
Agbozume or Klikor-Agbozume is a town in Ketu Municipal District in the Volta Region of southeastern Ghana. The main language spoken is the Ewe language.
Félix Couchoro was a Togolese writer and educator.
Diamond Cement Ghana Limited is an Indian-owned Portland cement producing company located at Aflao in the Volta Region of Ghana near the border with Togo. The plant complements the Government Industrialization Program and economic up-lift. The company is using the latest technology of Programmable Logic Control (PLC) system in the cement production process to maintain consistency in the quality.
Togbui Adzongaga Amenya Fiti V is the paramount chief of the Aflao Traditional Area in the Volta Region of Ghana.