A referendum on the territory's status was held in British Togoland

British Togoland

British Togoland was a League of Nations Class B mandate in West Africa, under the mandatory power of the United Kingdom. It was effectively formed in 1916 by the splitting of the occupied German protectorate of Togoland into two territories, French Togoland and British Togoland, during the First...

 on 9 May 1956. Since World War I the territory had been a League of Nations mandate

League of Nations mandate

A League of Nations mandate was a legal status for certain territories transferred from the control of one country to another following World War I, or the legal instruments that contained the internationally agreed-upon terms for administering the territory on behalf of the League...

, then a United Nations Trust Territory

United Nations Trust Territories

United Nations trust territories were the successors of the remaining League of Nations mandates and came into being when the League of Nations ceased to exist in 1946. All of the trust territories were administered through the UN Trusteeship Council...

 under British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 control. The referendum offered residents the choice of remaining a Trust Territory until neighbouring French Togoland

French Togoland

French Togoland was a France Mandate territory in West Africa, which later became the Togolese Republic.-Mandate territory:...

 had decided upon its future, or becoming part of soon-to-be independent Ghana

Ghana

Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...

. The Ghanaian Convention People's Party

Convention People's Party

The Convention People's Party is a socialist political party in Ghana, based on the ideas of former President Kwame Nkrumah.The CPP was formed in 1949 by Kwame Nkrumah to campaign for the independence of the Gold Coast. It ruled Ghana from 1957 to 1966...

 campaigned for integration whilst the Ewe

Ewe people

The Ewe are a people located in the southeast corner of Ghana, east of the Volta River, in an area now described as the Volta Region, in southern Togo and western Benin...

-based Togoland Congress

Togoland Congress

The Togoland Congress was a political party formed in 1951 to campaign for the unification of the Ewe people in British Togoland and French Togoland as a separate Ewe state. The party was defeated in the May 1956 UN plebiscite in British Togoland, which resulted in the unification of British...

were against and preferred amalgamation with French Togoland.

The eventual result was 63.9% in favour of integration with Ghana, although support for the move was stronger in the north than the south where a majority had voted for continued trusteeship.

Results

Choice	Votes	%
Integration with Ghana	142,214	63.9
UN Trusteeship	80,199	36.1
Total	224,313	100
Source: Nohlen et al.