Madagascar: Capital, Flag and Fun Facts

About Madagascar

Madagascar is a huge island in the Indian Ocean, off the southeast coast of Africa. It has rainforests, dry spiny forests, highlands and beaches. About 90 per cent of its plants and animals are found nowhere else on Earth.

About Antananarivo

Antananarivo is built on hills in the central highlands of Madagascar. Often called 'Tana', it is known for the Rova, a royal palace complex on its highest hill.

Fun facts about Madagascar

1. Madagascar is the fourth-largest island in the world, after Greenland, New Guinea and Borneo.
2. Lemurs are found naturally only on Madagascar, where more than 100 kinds of these big-eyed primates live.
3. Nearly half of all the world's chameleon species live in Madagascar, including some of the tiniest.
4. The Avenue of the Baobabs is a famous dirt road lined with giant baobab trees, some hundreds of years old.
5. Madagascar grows much of the world's vanilla, the flavouring used in ice cream, cakes and cookies.
6. In the Tsingy, part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, sharp limestone peaks form a 'stone forest'.