Madagascar Country Info - Africa

Description and Basic Information

Madagascar with its capital Antananarivo is located in Africa (Southern Africa, island in the Indian Ocean). It covers some 587,041 square kilometres (slightly less than twice the size of Arizona) with 20,042,000 citizens. French and Malagasy are the the languages spoken by people in Madagascar.

Madagascar is a country that occupies a large island of the same name, located in the Indian Ocean off the eastern coast of Africa. It is the fourth largest island in the world. Avenue of the Baobabs is an extra-ordinary stand of huge baobab trees. Located 45 minutes north of Morondava on Madagascar's west coast it is one of the most visited sites in the Menabe Region. The eastern, or windward side of the island is home to tropical rainforests, while the western and southern sides, which lie in the rain shadow of the central highlands, are home to tropical dry forests, thorn forests, and deserts and xeric shrublands.

Pictures from Capital (Antananarivo)

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About Madagascar

The terrain offers narrow coastal plain, high plateau and mountains in center. The average density of population is about 34 per km². The climate in Madagascar can be described as tropical along coast, temperate inland, arid in south. Possible natural disasters include periodic cyclones or drought or and locust infestation.

To reach someone in Madagascar dial +261 prior to a number. There are 181,200 installed telephones. And there are 5,997,000 registered mobile phones. The cellular networks operate on frequencies of 900 Mhz. Websites typically end with the top level domain ".mg". If you want to bring electric appliances (e.g. battery charger), keep in mind the local 220V - 50Hz. The following list are the 6 regions/states in Madagascar we know off.

Demographic Statistics

In the year 2010, the total Malagasy population grew at a rate of 2.99% (or by 636,753 citizens). With 169,616 deaths and 806,369 babies born, the natural increase rate lies at 2.99%. 0 persons more in total immigrated to the country than emmigrated.

An overview of age distribution in Madagascar: Each pair of bars represents a single age group (male/female). Each group is spanning 5 years. E.g. 0 to 5 years, 5 to 10 etc. and group "0 to 5" being at the left end and "100 +" at the right end of the chart.

Based on content from wikitravel.org. The original article can be found here based on the work of these users.
Geographic information is based on the data provided by geonames.org, CIA factsbook and Unesco.