Following the prehistoric breakup of the supercontinentGondwana, Madagascar split from Africa during the Early Jurassic period, around 180 million years ago, and seperated from the Indian subcontinent approximately 90 million years ago. This isolation allowed native plants and animals to evolve in relative seclusion; as a result, Madagascar is a biodiversity hotspot and one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries, with over 90% of its wildlife being endemic. The island has a subtropical to tropical maritime climate. Madagascar was first permanently settled during or before the mid-first millennium AD by Austronesian peoples, presumably arriving on outrigger canoes from present-day Indonesia. These were joined around the ninth century AD by Bantu groups crossing the Mozambique Channel from East Africa. Other groups continued to settle on Madagascar over time, each one making lasting contributions to Malagasy cultural life. Consequently, there are 18 or more classified peoples of Madagascar, the most numerous being the Merina of the central highlands.
Until the late 18th century, the island of Madagascar was ruled by a fragmented assortment of shifting sociopolitical alliances. Beginning in the early 19th century, most of it was united and ruled as the Kingdom of Madagascar by a series of Merina nobles. The monarchy was ended in 1897 by the annexation by France, from which Madagascar gained independence in 1960. The country has since undergone four major constitutional periods, termed republics, and has been governed as a constitutional democracy since 1992. Following a political crisis and military coup in 2009, Madagascar underwent a protracted transition towards its fourth and current republic, with constitutional governance being restored in January 2014. (Full article...)
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The flora of Madagascar consists of more than 12,000 species of plants, as well as a poorly known number of fungi and algae. Around 83% of Madagascar's vascular plants are found only on the island. These endemics include five plant families, 85% of the over 900 orchid species, around 200 species of palms, and such emblematic species as the traveller's tree, six species of baobab and the Madagascar periwinkle. The high degree of endemism is due to Madagascar's long isolation following its separation from the African and Indian landmasses in the Mesozoic, 150–160 and 84–91 million years ago, respectively. However, few plant lineages remain from the ancient Gondwanan flora; most extant plant groups immigrated via across-ocean dispersal well after continental break-up.
After its continental separation, Madagascar probably experienced a dry period, and tropical rainforest expanded only later in the Oligocene to Miocene when rainfall increased. Today, humid forests, including the lowland forests, are mainly found on the eastern plateau where abundant rainfall from the Indian Ocean is captured by an escarpment. A large part of the central highlands, in the sub-humid forests ecoregion, is today dominated by grasslands. They are widely seen as result of human landscape transformation but some may be more ancient. Grassland occurs in a mosaic with woodland and bushland, including tapia forest, and hard-leaved thickets on the high mountains. Dry forest and succulent woodland are found in the drier western part and grade into the unique spiny thicket in the southwest, where rainfall is lowest and the wet season shortest. Mangroves occur on the west coast, and a variety of wetland habitats with an adapted flora are found across the island. (Full article...)
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Madagascar lies off the east coast of Africa
The Madagascar Plan (German: Madagaskarplan) was a plan proposed by the Nazi German government to forcibly relocate the Jewish population of Europe to the island of Madagascar. Franz Rademacher, head of the Jewish Department of the German Foreign Office, proposed the idea in June 1940, shortly before the Fall of France. The proposal called for the handing over of control of Madagascar, then a French colony, to Germany as part of the eventual peace terms.
The idea of re-settling Polish Jews to Madagascar was investigated by the French Third Republic and the Second Polish Republic in 1937, but the task force sent to evaluate the island's potential determined that only 5,000 to 7,000 families could be accommodated, or even as few as 500 families by some estimates. As the efforts by the Nazis to encourage the emigration of the Jewish population of Germany before World War II were only partially successful, the idea of deporting Jews to Madagascar was revived by the Nazi government in 1940. (Full article...)
Image 5An Austronesian outrigger canoe; Malagasy vahoaka "people" is from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian*va-waka "people of the canoe". The Vahoaka Ntaolo, the first Austronesian ancestors of the Malagasy, probably used similar canoes to reach the great island from the Sunda Islands (from History of Madagascar)
Image 15Nosy Iranja is one of the international tourism destinations in Madagascar (from Madagascar)
Image 16Men in an Outrigger Canoe Headed for Shore, an oil painting by Arman Manookian depicting the Vezo people, c. 1929 (from History of Madagascar)
Image 17Matatana, represented in a picture of 1613, regarding a settlement of the beginning of the 16th century, in the Book of Humberto Leitão" (from Madagascar)
Image 25Vaγimba- "Those of the forest" in Proto–Southeast Barito, the reconstructed ancestor of the Southeast Barito languages, which includes the languages spoken by the Dayak peoples of the Barito River in Borneo (pictured) (from History of Madagascar)
Image 26The ring-tailed lemur is one of over 100 known species and subspecies of lemur found only in Madagascar. (from Madagascar)
Image 27Malagasy Embassy to Europe in 1863. Left to right: Rainifiringa Ralaimaholy, Rev. John Duffus and Rasatranabo aka Rainandrianandraina. (from History of Madagascar)
Image 28The taro (saonjo in Malagasy) is, according to an old Malagasy proverb, "the elder of the rice" (Ny saonjo no zokin'ny vary), and was also a staple diet for the proto-Austronesians (from History of Madagascar)
Image 29In many places oxcarts are an important medium of transport, like in Ambatolampy (from Madagascar)
Image 30Antananarivo is the political and economic capital of Madagascar. (from Madagascar)
Image 31Malagasy ancestry reflects a blend of Southeast Asian, Oceanian and Bantu (Southeast African) roots. (from Madagascar)
Image 40Historical change in per capita GDP of Madagascar since 1950 (from Madagascar)
Image 41Mahafaly tomb with traditional painted decoration (from Culture of Madagascar)
Image 42Canoe-sarcophagus of the Dayak: a burial that recalls the Malagasy tradition that former Ntaolo Vazimba and Vezo buried their dead in canoe-sarcophagi in the sea or in a lake (from History of Madagascar)
Image 43Moraingy is a traditional martial art of Madagascar. (from Madagascar)
Image 44A Sumatran village showing several traditional houses (Malagasy levu). The vahoaka ntaolo villages of Madagascar were probably similar in the first millennium AD. This model is still currently present on every coast and in the remote inland areas and forests. (from History of Madagascar)
Image 45Moraingy is a traditional martial art of Madagascar. (from Culture of Madagascar)
Image 46National monument in Moramanga commemorating the beginning of the Malagasy Uprising on 29 March 1947. Between 11,000 and 90,000 Malagasy died during the uprising which lasted nearly two years. (from Madagascar)
Image 47Radama I, the first monarch of the kingdom unified central Madagascar. (from History of Madagascar)
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