Madagascar

Madagascar: capital Antananarivo, population 32.7M, area 587,041 km². The 49th most populous country, in Africa. Facts, map, neighbours and more.

Madagascar is the world's fourth-largest island, split from Africa about 180 million years ago and from India some 88 million years ago, which left roughly 90 per cent of its wildlife found nowhere else. It was settled during or before the middle of the first millennium by Austronesian voyagers from what is now Indonesia, joined from about the ninth century by Bantu groups crossing the Mozambique Channel. The Merina kingdom of Imerina grew out of the central highlands from 1540, and Malagasy and French are the two official languages today.

• Madagascar was first permanently settled during or before the middle of the first millennium by Austronesian peoples who are thought to have arrived on outrigger canoes from what is now Indonesia.
• Andriamanelo is traditionally credited with founding Imerina in 1540; the kingdom kept a spiritual capital at Ambohimanga and a political one at Antananarivo, 24 kilometres to the west.
• The royal palace at Antananarivo was captured in 1895, the last queen was sent into exile in 1897, and Madagascar became independent from France in 1960.
• Fire destroyed or damaged every structure in the Rova of Antananarivo on the night of 6 November 1995, shortly before it was due to be inscribed by UNESCO; restoration was finished at the end of 2025.

• Andrianampoinimerina, whose name means the king in the heart of Imerina, ended 77 years of civil war and had reunited Imerina by 1793, ruling for 23 years from Ambohimanga.
• Radama I came to power at 17, was the first Malagasy sovereign Britain recognised as King of Madagascar, ended the international slave trade and united two-thirds of the island before dying at 35.
• Ranavalona III, the last sovereign of the kingdom, was exiled in 1897 and died at her villa in Algiers in 1917; her remains were brought back to the Rova 21 years later.
• Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, widely called Africa's first modern poet, taught himself French and Malagasy verse without finishing school and was named national poet when independence came in 1960.

• Ambohimanga, one of the twelve sacred hills of Imerina, is reached through 14 gateways that were sealed with stone discs, and it is Madagascar's only cultural World Heritage Site.
• Tsingy de Bemaraha was listed by UNESCO in 1990 for its blades of eroded limestone together with preserved mangrove forest and its bird and lemur populations.
• The Avenue of the Baobabs is a stand of Grandidier's baobabs along the unpaved Road No. 8 near Morondava, given temporary protected status in July 2007.
• Andasibe-Mantadia covers 155 square kilometres of mostly primary rainforest with rain on 210 days a year and holds 11 lemur species, among them the indri.

• Malagasy is the westernmost Austronesian language, carried some 7,300 kilometres from the Sunda Islands, and its closest relative is Maʼanyan, still spoken on Borneo.
• At a famadihana, Malagasy families take their ancestors out of the crypt every five to seven years, rewrap them in fresh cloth, write their names on it and dance with them before returning them.
• The valiha is a tube zither cut from local bamboo and counts as Madagascar's national instrument; under Merina rule long fingernails for plucking it marked the nobility from labourers.
• Madagascar and Indonesia together grow two thirds of the world's vanilla, the second most expensive spice by weight after saffron; hand pollination was worked out on Réunion in 1841.

What is the capital of Madagascar?

The capital of Madagascar is Antananarivo.

What is the population of Madagascar?

Madagascar has about 32.7M people — the 49th most populous country in the world.

How big is Madagascar?

Madagascar covers 587,041 km², making it the 45th largest country by area.

Which region is Madagascar in?

Madagascar is in Eastern Africa, Africa.