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Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, and previously known as the Malagasy Republic, is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately 400 kilometres off the coast of East Africa across the Mozambique Channel. At 592,800 square kilometres (228,900 sq mi) Madagascar is the world's second-largest island country, after Indonesia. The nation consists of the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Following the prehistoric breakup of the supercontinent Gondwana, Madagascar split from the Indian subcontinent around 88 million years ago, allowing native plants and animals to evolve in relative isolation. Consequently, Madagascar is a biodiversity hotspot; over 90% of its wildlife is endemic.
The history of Madagascar is distinguished clearly by the early isolation of the landmass from the ancient supercontinent containing Africa and India, and by the island's late colonization by human settlers from the Sunda islands and from East Africa. These two factors facilitated the evolution and survival of thousands of endemic plant and animal species, some of which have gone extinct or are currently threatened with extinction due to the government not allocating resources to help the growing population, causing many people to resort to harmful environmental practices as a way of survival. Trade in the Indian Ocean at the time of first colonization of Madagascar was dominated by large ships, called Djong, coming from Java and Sumatra.
Politics of Madagascar takes place in a framework of a semi-presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the President of Madagascar is head of state and the Prime Minister of Madagascar is head of government, and of a pluriform multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the Senate and the National Assembly. The Judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.
Ranavalona I, also known as Ranavalo-Manjaka I, was sovereign of the Kingdom of Madagascar from 1828 to 1861. After positioning herself as queen following the death of her young husband, Radama I, Ranavalona pursued a policy of isolationism and self-sufficiency, reducing economic and political ties with European powers, repelling a French attack on the coastal town of Foulpointe, and taking vigorous measures to eradicate the small but growing Malagasy Christian movement initiated under Radama I by members of the London Missionary Society. She made heavy use of the traditional practice of fanompoana to complete public works projects and develop a standing army of between 20,000 and 30,000 Merina soldiers, whom she deployed to pacify outlying regions of the island and further expand the realm. The combination of regular warfare, disease, difficult forced labor and harsh trials by ordeal using a poisonous nut from the Tangena shrub resulted in a high mortality rate among both soldiers and civilians during her 33-year reign, with Madagascar's population reducing from 5 million in 1833 to 2.5 million in 1839.
Marc Ravalomanana is a Malagasy politician who was the President of Madagascar from 2002 to 2009. Born into a farming Merina family in Imerinkasinina, near the capital city of Antananarivo, Ravalomanana first rose to prominence as the founder and CEO of the vast dairy conglomerate TIKO, later launching successful wholesaler MAGRO and several additional companies.
Jacques Hugues Sylla was a Malagasy politician. He was the Prime Minister of Madagascar under President Marc Ravalomanana from February 2002 to January 2007. He subsequently served as the President of the National Assembly of Madagascar from October 2007 to March 2009.
Albert Zafy was a Malagasy politician and educator who served as President of Madagascar from 27 March 1991 to 5 September 1996. In 1988, he founded the National Union for Democracy and Development (UNDD).
Didier Ignace Ratsiraka was a Malagasy politician and naval officer who was President of Madagascar from 1975 to 1993 and from 1997 to 2002. At the time of his death, he was the longest-serving President of Madagascar.
The Madagascar Plan was a proposal 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.
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa is a 2008 American computer-animated comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Paramount Pictures. It is the second installment in the franchise, following Madagascar (2005). It was directed by Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath, with a screenplay written by Etan Cohen, Darnell, and McGrath, and features Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, Jada Pinkett Smith, Sacha Baron Cohen, Cedric the Entertainer, Andy Richter, Elisa Gabrielli, McGrath, Chris Miller, Christopher Knights, and Conrad Vernon reprising their voice acting roles from the first film, joined by new cast members Bernie Mac, Alec Baldwin, Sherri Shepherd, and will.i.am, while John DiMaggio also joins the cast as the new voice of Rico. In the film, the main characters—a party of animals from the Central Park Zoo whose adventures have taken them to Madagascar—find themselves in Africa, where they meet others of their species and where Alex the lion reunites with his parents.
Madagascar is a 2005 American computer-animated comedy adventure film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by DreamWorks Pictures. It was directed by Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath and written by Mark Burton, Billy Frolick, Darnell, and McGrath. The film stars Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, Jada Pinkett Smith, Sacha Baron Cohen, Cedric the Entertainer, and Andy Richter voicing a group of animals from the Central Park Zoo who find themselves stranded on the island of Madagascar.
The Merina Kingdom, or Kingdom of Madagascar, officially the Kingdom of Imerina, was a pre-colonial state off the coast of Southeast Africa that, by the 19th century, dominated most of what is now Madagascar. It spread outward from Imerina, the Central Highlands region primarily inhabited by the Merina ethnic group with a spiritual capital at Ambohimanga and a political capital 24 km (15 mi) west at Antananarivo, currently the seat of government for the modern state of Madagascar. The Merina kings and queens who ruled over greater Madagascar in the 19th century were the descendants of a long line of hereditary Merina royalty originating with Andriamanelo, who is traditionally credited with founding Imerina in 1540.
The Penguins of Madagascar is an American CGI-animated television series co-produced by DreamWorks Animation and Nickelodeon. It stars nine characters from DreamWorks' animated film Madagascar: the penguins Skipper, Rico, Kowalski, and Private ; the lemurs King Julien, Maurice, and Mort ; and Mason and Phil the chimpanzees. Characters new to the series include Marlene the otter and a zookeeper named Alice. It is the first Nicktoon co-produced with DreamWorks Animation. The series was executive-produced by Bob Schooley and Mark McCorkle, who were the creators of the animated series Buzz Lightyear of Star Command and Disney Channel's Kim Possible.
Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted is a 2012 American computer-animated action adventure comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Paramount Pictures. It is the third and final installment of the Madagascar film series, following Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008), and was the first film in the series to be released in 3D. It was directed by Eric Darnell, Conrad Vernon, and Tom McGrath from a screenplay by Darnell and Noah Baumbach, and features Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, Jada Pinkett Smith, Sacha Baron Cohen, Cedric the Entertainer, Andy Richter, and McGrath reprising their voice acting roles from the previous installments, alongside new cast members Jessica Chastain, Bryan Cranston, Martin Short, and Frances McDormand. In the film, the main characters—a party of animals from the Central Park Zoo whose adventures have already taken them to Madagascar and Africa—attempt to return to New York, and find themselves traveling across Europe with a circus while being pursued by a relentless Animal Control officer.
Andry Nirina Rajoelina is a Malagasy politician and businessman who has been the president of Madagascar since 2019. He was previously president of a provisional government from 2009 to 2014 following a political crisis and military-backed coup, having held the office of Mayor of Antananarivo for one year prior.
The 2009 Malagasy political crisis began on 26 January 2009 with the political opposition movement led by Antananarivo mayor Andry Rajoelina, which sought to oust President Marc Ravalomanana from the presidency. The crisis reached its climax in the 2009 Malagasy coup d'état when Andry Rajoelina was declared the president of the High Transitional Authority of Madagascar on 21 March 2009, five days after Ravalomanana transferred his power to a military council and fled to South Africa.
Kinkonychelys is an extinct genus of side-necked turtle which existed in Madagascar during the Late Cretaceous period. It contains the single species Kinkonychelys rogersi, named in honor of its discoverer, Raymond R. Rogers. The genus and species are based on UA 9748, a nearly complete skull, which represents the first turtle skull described from the pre-Holocene era in Madagascar. A number of isolated skull and jaw bones have also been assigned to K. rogersi. These specimens were found in rocks of the Maastrichtian-age Maevarano Formation in the Mahajanga Basin of northwestern Madagascar. Another specimen, FMNH PR 2446, is speculated to represent another species, currently known as Kinkonychelys sp., but consensus on its distinction from K. rogersi remains unclear.
UA 8699 is a fossil mammalian tooth from the Cretaceous of Madagascar. A broken lower molar about 3.5 mm (0.14 in) long, it is from the Maastrichtian of the Maevarano Formation in northwestern Madagascar. Details of its crown morphology indicate that it is a boreosphenidan, a member of the group that includes living marsupials and placental mammals. David W. Krause, who first described the tooth in 2001, interpreted it as a marsupial on the basis of five shared characters, but in 2003 Averianov and others noted that all those are shared by zhelestid placentals and favored a close relationship between UA 8699 and the Spanish zhelestid Lainodon. Krause used the tooth as evidence that marsupials were present on the southern continents (Gondwana) as early as the late Cretaceous and Averianov and colleagues proposed that the tooth represented another example of faunal exchange between Africa and Europe at the time.
Alexey Diakonoff full name Alexey Nikolaievich Diakonoff was a Russian entomologist who specialised in Microlepidoptera.
Penguins of Madagascar is a 2014 American computer-animated spy action comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by 20th Century Fox. Starring the voices of Tom McGrath, Chris Miller, Conrad Vernon, Christopher Knights, Benedict Cumberbatch,Ken Jeong and John Malkovich, it is a spin-off of the Madagascar film series and takes place right after the events of Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted, following the penguins Skipper, Kowalski, Rico and Private in their own adventure, who join forces with the North Wind to stop the octopus villain Dave, who seeks revenge on all penguins from destroying the world by capturing the penguins. Apart from the main characters, it is not directly related to the Nickelodeon TV series of the same name.
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