Madagascar



Madagascar (Officially French: République de Madagascar) is an island and a country situated in the Indian Ocean south-east of the continent of Africa. It's separated from the continent of Africa by the Mozambique canal. Madagascar is the fourth largest island in the world after Greenland, New Guinea and Borneo. Madagascar formed approximately 80 to 100 million years ago when the island separated from the Indian subcontinent, 160 million years ago it split from the African continent together with the Indian subcontinent.

The island covers 587.041 km2, which is more than 3 times the size of Florida. From north to south the greatest distance is 1580 km, and from east to west the largest distance is 579 km. The highest point in Madagascar is Maromokotro, 2876 meters high. Madagascar is also called the "red island", a reference to the reddish brown earth.

Because of the central mountain ridge that runs across the island from north to south Madagascar has a very varied landscape. In the north there is the mountain range Montagne d'Ambre which has forests filled with ferns, palms and huge trees. A little further south lies the largely volcanic mountain range Ankarantra with many caves, caverns, limestone formations and underground rivers. The east coast is tropically humid and you can find tropical rainforests here. The southwestern tip of Madagascar is a very dry desert area with huge thorns.

Between the savanna landscape in the nortwest and the desert landscape in the southwest is an area with a steppe landscape. The nortwest coast has many deep bays with many islands. Along the coast there is a 15 to 110km wide, flat and swampy coastal plain, except in the more extreme north and southern part of the island. The largests rivers of Madagascar are the Manambdo and the Tsiribihina.

The main language in Madagascar is the Malagasy language, its generally spoken throughout the island. Besides the Malagasy language French is spoken among the educated population. English is still rare but it's becoming more widely spoken after the government started introducing English into the primary schools in 2003.