Aného developed between the Atlantic coast and Lake Togo within a landscape long inhabited by Guin, Mina, and neighboring communities. Migration, fishing, salt production, agriculture, lagoon transport, and regional markets shaped the area before European colonial rule. The town became known to Europeans as Little Popo or Petit-Popo. From the seventeenth century, Portuguese and other Atlantic merchants used the coast for trade, including the trafficking of enslaved Africans. Local rulers and brokers negotiated with foreign traders, but commerce also intensified warfare, coercion, and displacement.

European forts were less permanent here than at some Gold Coast ports, yet ships anchored offshore and relied on canoes to cross dangerous surf. Enslaved captives, ivory, agricultural goods, and later palm products moved through networks connecting Aného to the interior and the Atlantic. Afro-Brazilian families and returnees contributed to commercial, religious, and architectural life during the nineteenth century. Christian missions established schools and churches, while Vodun institutions and sacred sites at nearby Glidji remained central to community identity and political legitimacy.

In 1884 German envoy Gustav Nachtigal proclaimed a protectorate over Togo through treaties negotiated under unequal imperial conditions. Aného became the first capital of German Togoland and an early center of colonial administration. Officials imposed taxes, reorganized trade, and sought control over territory and labor. The capital moved to Lomé in 1897, where a better port and new infrastructure offered advantages. Aného’s relative political importance declined, though it remained a commercial, religious, and cultural center.

British and French forces invaded Togoland at the beginning of the First World War in 1914. The postwar settlement divided the colony into mandates, and Aného fell within the French-administered portion. French rule expanded schools, roads, Catholic institutions, and administrative controls while African political organization grew. Togo achieved independence in 1960. Coastal erosion, economic change, and the growth of Lomé challenged Aného, but fishing, markets, ceremonies, and family networks sustained the town.

The Aného-Glidji agglomeration entered Togo’s UNESCO tentative list in 2021, recognizing a landscape where colonial buildings, churches, shrines, palaces, cemeteries, and natural features preserve overlapping histories. Heritage work must avoid presenting the town solely through European architecture. Aného’s significance lies equally in Guin settlement, African commercial agency, the violence of the slave trade, Vodun practice, missionary encounter, German and French colonialism, and independence. Its vulnerable shoreline makes preservation urgent, while living ceremonies demonstrate that memory is maintained not only in structures but through custodians, priests, families, and communities.

Aného’s heritage is dispersed among houses, churches, shrines, cemeteries, commercial routes, and the lagoon rather than concentrated in one monumental enclosure. This makes preservation especially dependent on residents and on recognition of living religious practice. Catholic, Protestant, and African sacred traditions developed through encounter, conflict, and accommodation, while Afro-Brazilian families helped shape architecture and commerce along the coast. Coastal erosion and changing lagoon conditions threaten physical remains and livelihoods. Remembering Aného solely as a colonial capital would miss both its earlier role in Atlantic enslavement and its continuing place in local systems of authority and worship. Its landscape records how global trade and empire were experienced within households, lineages, markets, and sacred communities.