50 Fun Facts About Madagascar

Madagascar lies in which body of water?

It sits off the southeastern coast of Africa across the Mozambique Channel.

By area, Madagascar ranks where among the world's islands?

Only Greenland, New Guinea and Borneo are bigger, and it is the second-largest island country after Indonesia.

What is the capital and largest city of Madagascar?

Its colonial French name was Tananarive, and locals still shorten it to Tana.

Roughly what share of Madagascar's wildlife is found nowhere else on Earth?

The island split from Africa around 180 million years ago and from India about 90 million years ago, so its species evolved in isolation.

Which two languages are official in Madagascar?

Malagasy is an Austronesian language, closer to the languages of Borneo than to anything spoken in mainland Africa.

The Malagasy language is most closely related to a language still spoken on which island?

Its nearest relative is Ma'anyan, an East Barito language of Central Kalimantan, some 7,300 kilometres away.

In which year did Madagascar gain independence from France?

Independence came on 26 June 1960, and the country joined the United Nations that September.

Which people, from the central highlands, are the most numerous of Madagascar's ethnic groups?

Merina nobles united most of the island in the 19th century as the Kingdom of Madagascar.

Which 19th-century queen banned Christianity in Madagascar and pushed most foreigners out?

She ruled from 1828 to 1861 and used forced labour to build a standing army of 20,000 to 30,000 soldiers.

Madagascar supplies about what share of the world's natural vanilla?

Vanilla was the country's top export in 2017 at $894 million, ahead of nickel and cloves.

'Bourbon vanilla', the type grown in Madagascar, takes its name from the former name of which island?

It was on Réunion in 1841 that a 12-year-old enslaved boy, Edmond Albius, worked out how to hand-pollinate the orchid.

How many of the world's nine baobab species grow in Madagascar?

The island also holds three-quarters of its 860 orchid species.

The famous Avenue of the Baobabs runs along a road near which western town?

About 20 to 25 Grandidier's baobabs line a 260-metre stretch of the unpaved Road No. 8.

The Malagasy name for the baobab, 'renala', translates as what?

The trees are survivors of dense tropical forests that once covered the region.

Madagascar is home to about two-thirds of the world's species of which reptile?

That includes the smallest known species.

The word 'lemur' comes from a Latin word meaning what?

Linnaeus borrowed 'lemures', the spirits exorcised during Rome's Lemuria festival, and applied it first to a slow-moving loris.

Which Madagascan animal is the world's smallest primate?

It weighs about 30 grams; at the other extreme, the recently extinct Archaeoindris was gorilla-sized.

Which lemur finds grubs by tapping on trees, then digging them out with a thin middle finger?

Early naturalists mistook it for a rodent because of its ever-growing incisors; it is the world's largest nocturnal primate.

Which of these lemurs is famous for having only a rudimentary tail?

Also called the babakoto, it is one of the largest living lemurs and sings loud songs lasting up to three minutes or more.

Male ring-tailed lemurs settle disputes with what kind of contest?

They douse their tails in scent from wrist glands and waft them at rivals.

What is the largest mammalian carnivore native to Madagascar?

It looks like a small cougar but is related to mongooses, and lemurs make up over half of its diet.

How does the Madagascar hissing cockroach make its signature sound?

Unusually for a cockroach it has no wings, so the hiss is its main defence.

Which extinct flightless giant of Madagascar may have been the largest of its kind that ever lived?

Aepyornis maximus lived alongside 17 species of giant lemur and dwarf hippos, all wiped out after humans arrived.

Madagascar's first permanent settlers are thought to have arrived by outrigger canoe from which region?

Bantu groups crossed the Mozambique Channel from Africa a few centuries later, around the ninth century.

What is Maromokotro?

It rises 2,876 metres in the Tsaratanana Massif in the north of the island.

The highland custom of famadihana involves doing what?

It is a festive family reunion as much as a rite, and Christian ministers are sometimes invited to consecrate it.

Which sport is considered the national sport of Madagascar?

On the coasts, a bare-knuckle fighting style called moraingy also draws big crowds.

The valiha, Madagascar's most emblematic instrument, is what kind of instrument?

Early settlers carried it from southern Borneo, and similar instruments survive in Indonesia and the Philippines.

The name of Madagascar's capital is usually translated as what?

King Andriamasinavalona renamed the hill in honour of the soldiers of King Andrianjaka, who had founded it around 1610.

Roughly how high above sea level does Madagascar's capital sit?

That makes it the highest national capital of any island country.

Which vinca alkaloid cancer drugs were derived from the Madagascar periwinkle?

They are used against Hodgkin lymphoma and leukaemia, among other cancers.

Ilakaka's deposits made Madagascar the source of half the world's supply of which gem in the late 1990s?

The island also holds one of the world's largest reserves of ilmenite, the ore of titanium.

In the 1720s, which country's fleet drove out the Caribbean pirates who had settled on Madagascar?

Ratsimilaho, the son of an English pirate and a Malagasy woman, went on to unite the east-coast Antavaratra.

What name is given to the 1947 revolt against French rule in Madagascar?

France's own occupation during the Second World War had shattered the colonial administration's prestige.

Which cattle, brought from South India, became central to Malagasy farming and culture?

Early peoples turned much of the island from forest into grassland to graze them.

In the 2005 DreamWorks film Madagascar, which zoo do Alex, Marty, Melman and Gloria escape from?

Marty the zebra bolts on his tenth birthday, hoping to catch a train to Connecticut.

Who voices Alex the lion in the Madagascar films?

He was the first actor the directors approached; they wanted a big performing lion with a vulnerable side.

Which comedian voices King Julien, the ring-tailed lemur?

Julien was meant to have two lines until the audition, when eight minutes of improvised dialogue in an Indian accent won him a much bigger part.

What kind of animal is Maurice, King Julien's advisor?

Cedric the Entertainer voices him; Mort, Julien's biggest fan, is a Goodman's mouse lemur.

Which DreamWorks executive provided the (uncredited) grunts of Rico the penguin?

Producer Mireille Soria enjoyed the irony that the studio boss played the one penguin who never talks.

Which Madagascar co-director's temp track became Skipper's voice after Robert Stack died?

McGrath modelled Skipper on Stack's clipped delivery in The Untouchables.

'I Like to Move It', the franchise's recurring song, was originally recorded by which act?

Sacha Baron Cohen's cover, in character as King Julien, became the theme of the whole series.

Which film is the highest-grossing entry in the DreamWorks series?

The 2012 circus caper took over $746 million worldwide; the penguin spin-off two years later underperformed and forced a write-down.

The spin-off series All Hail King Julien premiered in 2014 on which platform?

The Penguins of Madagascar TV series, by contrast, aired on Nickelodeon.

Roughly how long ago did Madagascar break away from the Indian subcontinent?

It had already broken from Africa around 180 million years ago, in the Early Jurassic, after Gondwana came apart.

Which 13th-century traveller's confusion is thought to have given Madagascar its name?

His memoirs mention a land of 'Madageiscar' south of Socotra, possibly a muddle with Mogadishu.

Which king united Imerina in the 1790s and launched the drive to rule the whole island?

His son Radama I largely finished the job, winning British recognition as 'King of Madagascar' in 1817.

In 1817 Radama I agreed to abolish the slave trade in return for aid from which colonial power?

The treaty with the governor of Mauritius pushed the Sakalava and the French into a natural alliance against him.

In which year did France annex Madagascar, dissolving the Merina monarchy?

The royal family was exiled to Réunion and Algeria, and the Menalamba rebellion dragged on until 1897.

Who was the French-appointed first president of independent Madagascar from 1960 to 1972?

Resentment of his 'neo-colonial' ties to France sparked the farmer and student protests that toppled him.