And tell me a brief about it please? Thanks. Madagascar is the world's fourth biggest island after Greenland, New Guinea and Borneo. It is situated in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Africa. Because of its isolation most of its mammals, half its birds, and most of its plants exist nowhere else on earth.
The island is heavily exposed to tropical cyclones which bring torrential rains and destructive floods, such as the ones in 2000 and 2004, which left thousands homeless.
The Malagasy are thought to be descendents of Africans and Indonesians who settled on the island more than 2,000 years ago. Malagasy pay a lot of attention to their dead and spend much effort on ancestral tombs, which are opened from time to time so the remains can be carried in procession, before being rewrapped in fresh shrouds.
After sometimes harsh French colonial rule, which included the bloody suppression of an uprising in 1947, Madagascar gained independence in 1960. The military seized power in the early 1970s with the aim of achieving a socialist paradise.
This did not materialise. The economy went into decline and by 1982 the authorities were forced to adopt a structural adjustment programme imposed by the International Monetary Fund.
The World Bank has estimated that 70% of Malagasy live on less than $1 per day. Poverty and the competition for agricultural land have put pressure on the island's dwindling forests, home to much of Madagascar's unique wildlife and key to its emerging tourist industry
The island has strong ties with France as well as economic and cultural links with French-speaking West Africa.
National state radio and TV came under the control of presidential contender Marc Ravalomanana in March 2002 during the power struggle with veteran leader Didier Ratsiraka.
Mr Ravalomanana also owns the private Malagasy Broadcasting System, which operates the MBS TV and Radio MBS networks. Many private radio stations in the capital are owned by pro-Ravalomanana politicians.
A boom in privately-owned FM radio stations and more critical political reporting by the print media followed 1990's law on press freedom.
Although nationwide radio and TV broadcasting remain the monopoly of the state, there are hundreds of private local radio and TV stations. it is off the coast of africa. It's in the movie rental store under cartoon/comedy. If you get a map of the world, Madagascar is a small island off the coast of Africa(east coast). Its an island off of Africa, the fourth largest island in the world It is a large island off the Southeastern coast of Africa. I could copy and paste the article, but really that would be a waste of space: you can get all the information you need off of Wikipedia.org - just go to the site, type in the name of the country, and you're set. You can get information on just about anything there, so it's a good resource. Madagascar is an island to the east of the southern part of Africa.
It is the world's fourth largest island, with 4,828 km of coastline.
The capital city is Antananarivo.
The island has a narrow coastal plain getting higher as it gets inland, and there are mountains in the centre.
The highest mountain is Maromokotro at 2,876m.
The small map shows Africa, and the arrow shows where Madagascar is located.
Madagascar was part of the African continent but broke off and drifted to where it is now about two million years ago. This means that the plants and animals of Madagascar are unique, and different from those of Africa. More than three quarters of the plants and animals are found nowhere else, including huge tree ferns and palm trees, amazing desert plants, and animals such as the lemur.
Madagascar was governed by France from 1895, but became a republic in 1958, calling itself the Malagasy Republic. It remained under French guidance until 1960, when it became a fully independent country. In 1975, the country re-named itself the Democratic Republic of Madagascar. In 1993 it became the Republic of Madagascar.
The people elect their government and a President. Citizens 18 years and over can vote.
Currency: Malagasy franc
Population: 15.5 million
Natural resources found on the island include graphite, chromite, coal, bauxite, salt, quartz, tar sands, semiprecious stones, fish, hydropower. Industries include meat processing, soap, breweries, tanneries, sugar, textiles, glassware, cement, car assembly plant, paper, petroleum.
Semi precious stones
The Land: About 5% of the land is farmed with crops or pasture. The main products are coffee, vanilla, sugarcane, cloves, cocoa, rice, cassava (tapioca), beans, bananas, peanuts, and livestock products. Almost half the island is covered in forests. Much of these forests are being cut down, and as a result soil erosion is becoming a major environmental problem. Too many animals being grazed on limited land is also a problem. Several kinds of the island's plants and animals are endangered.
Ripe coffee 'cherries' ready for picking. The red pulp is removed and the coffee bean inside is removed and roasted.
Madagascar is not a wealthy country. Its people face problems of malnutrition and poor health and education facilities. The demand for products such as coffee has fallen. The government is attempting to improve the economy of the country. Tourism is a growing industry, and contributes to the local economy.
The flag of Madagascar I don't know too much about it but I do know geography. It is a tropical, large island off the southeast coast of Africa. I'm sure it's inhabited by monkeys...wild animals like that. Hope this helped! it is on this earth and it is on land were peapol can live on Its part of Africa. Its an island. If you look for it on a map it would be on the bottom right of Aftrica. madagascar is an island off the coast of southeastern africa Madagascar, or Republic of Madagascar (older name Malagasy Republic), is an island nation in the Indian Ocean, off the southeastern coast of Africa. The main island, also called Madagascar, is the fourth largest island in the world, and is home to five percent of the world's plant and animal species (more than 80 percent of which are indigenous to Madagascar[1]). Most notable are the lemur infraorder of primates, the carnivorous fossa, three endemic bird families and six endemic baobab species.
Capital (and largest city) Antananarivo
Official languages Malagasy, French, English
Government Republic
- President Marc Ravalomanana
- Prime Minister Charles Rabemananjara
Independence from France
- Date 26 June 1960
Area
- Total 587,041 km虏 (45th)
226,597 sq mi
- Water (%) 0.13%
Population
- July 2005 estimate 18,606,000 (56th)
- 1993 census 12,238,914
- Density 32 /km虏 (171st)
83 /sq mi
GDP (PPP) 2006 estimate
- Total $17.270 billion (123rd)
- Per capita $905 (169th)
Gini? (2001) 47.5 (high)
HDI (2004) 0.509 (medium) (143th)
Currency Malagasy ariary (MGA)
Time zone EAT (UTC+3)
- Summer (DST) not observed (UTC+3)
Internet TLD .mg
Calling code +261
Weather Overview
Madagascar's lush coastal areas have that warm, wet tropical feel, with regular rain year round, while still managing a good amount of sunshine during the day. Temperatures on the coast are fairly moderate, usually peaking above 30掳C (86掳F) in summer with only slight seasonal fluctuation. The average temperature drops as you head inland to the central plateau, as does the amount of rainfall, except from December to March, which sees a very stormy wet season. This same period can get unbearably hot in the west/southwest.
Local Health Conditions
Malaria
This serious and potentially fatal disease is spread by mosquito bites. If you are travelling in endemic areas it is extremely important to avoid mosquito bites and to take tablets to prevent this disease. Symptoms range from fever, chills and sweating, headache, diarrhoea and abdominal pains to a vague feeling of ill-health. Seek medical help immediately if malaria is suspected. Without treatment malaria can rapidly become more serious and can be fatal.
If medical care is not available, malaria tablets can be used for treatment. You should seek medical advice, before you travel, on the right medication and dosage for you.
If you do contract malaria, be sure to be re-tested for malaria once you return home as you can harbour malaria parasites in your body even if you are symptom free.
Travellers are advised to prevent mosquito bites at all times. The main messages are: wear light-coloured clothing; wear long trousers and long-sleeved shirts; use mosquito repellents containing the compound DEET on exposed areas (prolonged overuse of DEET may be harmful, especially to children, but its use is considered preferable to being bitten by disease-transmitting mosquitoes); avoid perfumes and aftershave.Use a mosquito net impregnated with mosquito repellent (permethrin) - it may be worth taking your own.
Schistosomiasis (bilharzia)
Also known as bilharzia, this disease is carried in freshwater by tiny worms that enter through the skin and attach themselves to the intestines or bladder. The first symptom may be tingling and sometimes a light rash around the area where the worm entered. Weeks later, a high fever may develop. A general unwell feeling may be the first symptom, or there may be no symptoms. Once the disease is established, abdominal pain and blood in the urine are other signs. The infection often causes no symptoms until the disease is well established (several months to years after exposure), and damage to internal organs is irreversible. Avoid swimming or bathing in freshwater where bilharzia is present. Even deep water can be infected. If you do get wet, dry off quickly and dry your clothes as well.
A blood test is the most reliable test, but it will not show positive until a number of weeks after exposure.
Hepatitis
Several different viruses cause hepatitis; they differ in the way that they are transmitted. The symptoms in all forms of the illness include fever, chills, headache, fatigue, feelings of weakness and aches and pains, followed by loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, dark urine, light-coloured faeces, jaundiced (yellow) skin and yellowing of the whites of the eyes.
There are 6 known types of viral hepatitis:A, B, C, D, E and G. G is not dangerous. A and E are passed on by the fecal-oral route of transmission; there is a vaccine. Seek medical advice, but there is not much you can do apart from resting, drinking lots of fluids, eating lightly and avoiding fatty foods. A and E cause an acute illness, but you will recover fully from it.
B and D are passed on via blood, saliva, semen and vaginal fluids. They can be passed on by close contact, sexual contact, and blood-to-blood contact. The symptoms of hepatitis B may be more severe than type A and the disease can lead to long-term problems such as chronic liver damage, liver cancer or a long-term carrier state. There is a vaccine.
Hepatitis C is only passed on from blood-to-blood contact. There is no vaccine.
Diarrhoea
To prevent diarrhoea, avoid tap water unless it has been boiled, filtered, or chemically disinfected (e.g. with iodine tablets); only eat fresh fruits and vegetables if cooked or peeled; be wary of dairy products that might contain unpasteurised milk, and be highly selective when eating food from street vendors.
If you develop diarrhoea, be sure to drink plenty of fluids, preferably an oral re-hydration solution containing lots of salt and sugar. A few loose stools don't require treatment but, if you start experiencing more than four or five stools a day, you should start taking an antibiotic (usually a quinolone drug) and an antidiarrhoeal agent (such as loperamide).
If diarrhoea is bloody, or persists for more than 72 hours, or is accompanied by fever, shaking chills or severe abdominal pain you should seek medical attention.
Religion
Traditional beliefs 50%, Christianity 45% and Islam 5%. Off the east coast of Africa - toward the south
has several species of animals and flora that are only found there
Has a whacked out zebra, giraffe, lion, and charming hippo -
wait - that's the movie
and really good, too
hope this helps Madagascar is an island off the south-east coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean. It's still part of Africa, but it's its own country. If you look at Africa on the map, its the longish island to the east (right). Madagascar is famous for its fauna, you find many species there that you don't find elsewhere because the island split off from the continent at an early state and since then, evolution took some different paths there. A bit like what happened in Australia, really. Country report? I hate those. I did one on Madagascar too! Madagascar is Northeast of South Africa and East of Mozambique. There are many forests there.
Official info from WIKI:
Madagascar, or Republic of Madagascar (older name Malagasy Republic), is an island nation in the Indian Ocean, off the southeastern coast of Africa. The main island, also called Madagascar, is the fourth largest island in the world, and is home to five percent of the world's plant and animal species (more than 80 percent of which are indigenous to Madagascar[1]). Most notable are the lemur infraorder of primates, the carnivorous fossa, three endemic bird families and six endemic baobab species[2].
Despite its location close to the African continent, the first human settlers of Madagascar appear to have come from Asia, rather than Africa, between 100 and 500 AD. The culture shows the influence of both Africa and Asia. The settlement represented the western-most branch of the great Austronesian expansion. Some of the strongest evidence indicating that the settlers of Madagascar came from this region is linguistic: the Malagasy language belongs to the group of Malayo-Polynesian languages, the rest of which are spoken in the island nations of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean.
The written history of Madagascar begins in the 7th century, when Arabs established trading posts along the northwest coast and first transcribed the Malagasy into the Arabic-based alphabet Sorabe. European contact began in the 1500s, when Portuguese sea captain Diogo Dias sighted the island after his ship separated from a fleet going to India.
In 1665, Fran莽ois Caron, the Director General of the newly formed French East India Company, sailed to Madagascar. The Company failed to found a colony on Madagascar but established ports on the nearby islands of Bourbon and 脦le-de-France (today's R茅union and Mauritius). In the late 17th century, the French established trading posts along the east coast.
From about 1774 to 1824, it was a favourite haunt for pirates, including Americans, one of whom brought Malagasy rice to North Carolina. Many European sailors would be shipwrecked on the coasts of the island. The most interesting of these is Robert Drury whose journal is one of the only written depictions of life in southern Madagascar during the 18th century[3].
During the Middle Ages, the chiefs of the different settlements began to extend their power through trade with Indian Ocean neighbors, notably East Africa, the Middle East and India. Large chiefdoms began to dominate considerable areas of the island. Among these were the Sakalava chiefdoms of the Menabe, centered in what is now the town of Morondava, and of Boina, centered in what is now the provincial capital of Mahajanga (Majunga). The influence of the Sakalava extended across what is now the provinces of Antsiranana, Mahajanga and Toliara. But with the domination of the Indian Ocean by the British fleet and the end of the Arab slave trade, the Sakalava would lose their power to the emerging Merina threat. For a short time the Betsimisaraka of the east coast also unified, but this unification was short-lived.
On October 1, 1776, the natives of Madagascar elected M贸ric Be艌ovsk媒 (Matthew/Maurice/M贸ritz Benyowsky/Benovsky/Benyowszky) King / Emperor (Ampansacab茅) of Madagascar on the Mahevelou plane. Among other things, Maurice introduced Latin script for the Malagasy language. (In the history of Madagascar, the King Andrianampoinimerina (1786鈥?810) is mentioned as the national unifier鈥攊n fact he built upon the efforts of the Ampansacabe Be艌ovsk媒.)
Beginning in the 1790s, Merina rulers succeeded in establishing hegemony over the major part of the island, including the coast. In 1817, the Merina ruler and the British governor of Mauritius concluded a treaty abolishing the slave trade, which had been important in Madagascar's economy. In return, the island received British military and financial assistance. British influence remained strong for several decades, during which the Merina court was converted to Presbyterianism, Congregationalism, and Anglicanism.
France invaded Madagascar in 1883 in what became known as the first Franco-Hova War (Hova being the name of the Merina aristocrats), seeking to restore property that had been confiscated from French citizens. At the war鈥檚 end, Madagascar ceded Antsiranana (Diego Suarez) on the northern coast to France and paid 560,000 gold francs to the heirs of Joseph-Fran莽ois Lambert. The British accepted the imposition of a French protectorate over Madagascar in 1885 in return for eventual control over Zanzibar (now part of Tanzania) and as part of an overall definition of spheres of influence in the area.
In Europe, meanwhile, diplomats partitioning the African continent worked out an agreement whereby Britain, to obtain the Sultanate of Zanzibar, ceded its share of Heligoland to Germany and renounced all claims to Madagascar in favor of France. In 1895, a French flying column landed in Mahajanga (Majunga) and marched to the capital, Antananarivo, where the city鈥檚 defenders were taken by surprise, as they were expecting an attack from the much closer east coast. Twenty French soldiers died fighting and 6,000 died of malaria and other diseases before the second Franco-Hova War ended.
Absolute French control over Madagascar was established by military force in 1895鈥?896, and in 1896 the French Parliament voted to annex Madagascar. The 103-year-old Merina monarchy ended with the royal family being sent into exile in Algeria. In December 1904, the Russian Baltic Fleet stopped at Diego Suarez for coal and provisions before sailing on to its doomed encounter with the Japanese Fleet in the Battle of Tsushima. Before leaving port the Russian sailors were required to put ashore the animals they had acquired, including monkeys, boa constrictors and one crocodile.
During World War II, Malagasy troops fought in France, Morocco, and Syria. Immediately preceding the fall of France, Germany initiated planning to forcibly deport all of Europe's Jews to Madagascar in what was known as the Madagascar Plan. Action on the plan was never begun. After France fell to Germany, the Vichy government administered Madagascar. British troops occupied the strategic island in 1942 to preclude its seizure by the Japanese, after which the Free French took over.
In 1947, with French prestige at low ebb, a nationalist uprising was suppressed after several months of bitter fighting with 8,000 persons killed[4]. The French subsequently established reformed institutions in 1956 under the Loi Cadre (Overseas Reform Act), and Madagascar moved peacefully toward independence. The Malagasy Republic was proclaimed on October 14, 1958, as an autonomous state within the French Community. A period of provisional government ended with the adoption of a constitution in 1959 and full independence on June 26, 1960.
For more information, Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar its just of the coast of Africa, its a very beautiful place, so divers in nature Madagascar is an island, the fourth largest island in the world, located off the coast of Africa in the Pacific Ocean. Due to its being relatively isolated from other countries, it has many species of plants and animals not found anywhere else. That's all I will tell you. Since this question is most likely for a geography test in school, you need to go to the link below and DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH. It's simple enough, provided you can read. on the south right coast of africa, and is mainly beach and tropics because its and island somewhere on the planet earth wow, its east from south Africa Madagascar, the world's fourth-largest island in the world and is the Largest in the Indian Ocean. Off the South East of Africa.
Madagascar is full of oddities and rarities. If you're partial to lizards, for example, you're in luck: You'll find more than half the world's varieties of chameleons there. You'll also find more than 170 kinds of frogs and some 40 species of lemurs (the wide-eyed, long-tailed relatives of monkeys) that are exclusive...
Here are some basic facts:
Capital = Antananarivo
Government = Republic
Currency = ariary (MGA)
Area
total: 587,040 km2
water: 5,500 km2
land: 581,540 km2
Population = 18,595,469 (July 2006 est.)
Language = French (official), Malagasy (official)
Religion = Indigenous beliefs 52%, Christian 41%, Muslim 7%
Calling Code +261
Internet TLD .mg
Time Zone UTC+3
If you want to go to Madagascar,
you can only arrive via plane or boat.
By plane
From Europe, the best connections are with Air France, Corsair or Air Madagascar ("AirMad") from Paris to Antananarivo. AirMad also flies from Milan to Nosy Be (a small island off the North of Madagascar).
Travellers from the east typically fly using links from Air Mauritius. However, since 2003 Air Madagascar has a twice weekly service from Bangkok to Antananarivo.
Air Madagascar also operates a weekly service between Nairobi and Antananarivo.
By boat
The only regular link is from Toamasina on the east coast and Mauritius. Look at a map, now look at Africa. Madagascar is that large Island to the south east of Africa near Mozambique. Madagascar is an island (fourth largest in the world) in the Indian Ocean opposite Mozambique in Southern Africa.
I dont know a great deal about, but apparently a temperate climate with beautiful animals, and also lemurs.
The James Bond film "Casino Royale" wasset in the north coast of Madagascar, but was actually filmed in the Bahamas. Madagascar is the 4th largest island in the world. It is located off the coast of Africa from which it is separated by the Canal of Mozambique. The island is famous for its vegetation and wild life.
A few emblems of Madagascar are:
The motto: Fatherland, Liberty,Justice.
The National Flag, made up of 3 colours: Red (sovereignty), White (purity), Green (hope).
The National animal: Ring tailed Lemur.
The National tree: Baobab (Adansonia).
The National Flower: Royal poinciana (Delonix regia).
The currency: The Malagasy Franc (MGF)
The typical dress: the lamba Probably in the Kids section with the rest of the Disney movies. |
