Life in Togo: Every Number That Shapes It (1800–2100)

To understand a country is to look past the borders and into the rhythms of the lives lived within them. In Togo, the data reveals a quiet, persistent transformation. The human story here is etched in shifts: from a landscape where 320 children per 1,000 births died before reaching their fifth year, to a present where that figure has fallen to 75. These statistics are not abstract; they represent the accumulation of small, incremental gains in health, education, and access to basic infrastructure that define the daily experience for millions.

The historical arc from the 1950s to the 2020s reflects a nation in motion. In the 1950s, life expectancy at birth was 36 years, while income per person sat at 1,500 intl-$. Today, life expectancy has reached 62 years, supported by an income per person of 3,800 intl-$. While electricity at home grew from 3 % to 48 % and internet access climbed from 0 to 29 %, the society transitioned from 11 % living in cities to 41 %, fundamentally altering how Togo functions as a community.

For an individual, these shifts define the boundaries of possibility. A person born in Togo today faces a different horizon than those of the previous century, with years of schooling increasing from 1.2 to 6 years and extreme poverty declining from 75 % to 35 %. While the homicide rate moved from 11 to 9.5 per 100,000 and the average male height rose from 167 to 169 cm, the annual working hours shifted from 2,200 to 2,050. Visit our interactive tool to calculate your own parallel lives.