 | Look up Malagasy in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
Malagasy may refer to:
- Someone or something from Madagascar
- Malagasy people
- Malagasy language
- Malagasy Republic
- Related to the culture of Madagascar
| Look up Malagasy in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
Malagasy may refer to:
 | This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Malagasy. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. |
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. At 592,800 square kilometres (228,900 sq mi) Madagascar is the world's second-largest island country. The nation comprises 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 found nowhere else on Earth. The island's diverse ecosystems and unique wildlife are threatened by the encroachment of the rapidly growing human population and other environmental threats.
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 arriving in outrigger canoes from the Sunda islands between 200 BCE and 500 CE. 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 pressures of a growing human population. Over the past two thousand years the island has received waves of settlers of diverse origins including Austronesian, Bantu, Arab, South Asian, Chinese and European. The majority of the population of Madagascar today is a mixture of Austronesian, Bantu, North Indian, Arab and Somali settlers.
This article is about the demographic features of the population of Madagascar, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.
The Merina people are the largest ethnic group in Madagascar. They are the "highlander" Malagasy ethnic group of the African island and one of the country's eighteen official ethnic groups. Their origins are mixed, predominantly with Malayo-Indonesians arriving before the 5th century AD, then many centuries later by Arabs, Africans and other ethnic groups. They speak the Merina dialect of the official Malagasy language of Madagascar.
The Malagasy Uprising was a Malagasy nationalist rebellion against French colonial rule in Madagascar, lasting from March 1947 to February 1949. Starting in late 1945, Madagascar's first French National Assembly deputies, Joseph Raseta, Joseph Ravoahangy and Jacques Rabemananjara of the Mouvement démocratique de la rénovation malgache (MDRM) political party, led an effort to achieve independence for Madagascar through legal channels. The failure of this initiative and the harsh response it drew from the Socialist Ramadier administration radicalized elements of the Malagasy population, including leaders of several militant nationalist secret societies.
The Malagasy are an Austronesian ethnic group native to the island country of Madagascar. They are divided into two subgroups: the "Highlander" Merina, Sihanaka and Betsileo of the central plateau around Antananarivo, Alaotra (Ambatondrazaka) and Fianarantsoa, and the "coastal dwellers" elsewhere in the country.
The Malagasy or striped civet, also known as the fanaloka or jabady, is an euplerid endemic to Madagascar.
Several species of Malagasy hippopotamus lived on the island of Madagascar but are now believed to be extinct. The animals were very similar to the extant hippopotamus and pygmy hippopotamus. The fossil record suggests that at least one species of hippopotamus lived until about 1,000 years ago and other evidence suggests that the species may have survived until much more recently. A non-fossilized skull and tusk were found in Madagascar in 2019 by biologist Forrest Galante, and were dated to less than 200 years old, possibly even surviving into the present day. The taxonomy of these animals is not resolved and not widely studied. The various species are believed to have survived into the Holocene epoch.
The Malagasy Lutheran Church is one of the most important Christian churches in Madagascar, established in 1950 by the unification of 1,800 Lutheran congregations in central and southern Madagascar. The oldest of these congregations was founded in the early 19th century with the arrival of missionaries from the Norwegian Missionary Society (NMS).
Malagasy is an Austronesian language and the national language of Madagascar. Most people in Madagascar speak it as a first language as do some people of Malagasy descent elsewhere.
Euplerinae, more commonly known as malagasy civets, is a subfamily of carnivorans that includes four species restricted to Madagascar. Together with the subfamily Galidiinae, which also only occurs on Madagascar, it forms the family Eupleridae. Members of this subfamily, which include the fossa, falanoucs and Malagasy civet, were placed in families like Felidae and Viverridae before genetic data indicated their consanguinity with other Madagascar carnivorans. Within the subfamily, the falanouc and Malagasy civet are more closely related to each other than to the fossa.
The Malagasy language of Malayo-Polynesian origin, is generally spoken throughout the island. The official languages of Madagascar are Malagasy and French. Madagascar is a Francophone country, and French is spoken among the educated population of this former French colony. Including second-language speakers, there are more speakers of Malagasy than French in Madagascar.
This is a list of prime ministers of Madagascar, since the establishment of the office of Chief Minister in 1828, during the Merina Kingdom.
The Colony of Madagascar and Dependencies was a French colony off the coast of Southeast Africa between 1897 and 1958.
Indonesia–Madagascar relations spans for over a millennium, since the ancestors of the people of Madagascar sailed across the Indian Ocean from the Malay Archipelago back in 8th or 9th century AD. Indonesia has an embassy in Antananarivo, while Madagascar does not have an accreditation to Indonesia. It was announced in December 2017 that Madagascar would be opening an embassy in Jakarta in 2018, however, as of 2020, Madagascar has not yet opened an embassy in the country.
The Cinema of Madagascar refers to the film industry in Madagascar.
France–Madagascar relations refers to the diplomatic relations between the French Republic and the Republic of Madagascar. France controlled Madagascar beginning in 1895 until the islands nation independence in 1960. Both nations are today members of the Francophonie and the United Nations.
Canada–Madagascar relations are foreign relations between Canada and Madagascar. Both countries are full members of the Francophonie, United Nations and the World Trade Organization.