Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country comprising the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's fourth largest island, the second-largest island country and the 44th largest country in the world. Its capital and largest city is Antananarivo.
The history of Madagascar is distinguished clearly by the early isolation of the landmass from the ancient supercontinent of Pangaea, containing amongst others the African continent and the Indian subcontinent, 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. Trade in the Indian Ocean at the time of first colonization of Madagascar was dominated by Indonesian ships, probably of Borobudur ship and K'un-lun po types.
Demographic features of the population of Madagascar include population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.
The highly diverse and distinctive music of Madagascar has been shaped by the musical traditions of Southeast Asia, Africa, Oceania, Arabia, England, France and the United States over time as indigenous people, immigrants, and colonists have made the island their home. Traditional instruments reflect these widespread origins: the mandoliny and kabosy owe their existence to the introduction of the guitar by early Arab or European seafarers, the ubiquitous djembe originated in mainland Africa and the valiha—the bamboo tube zither considered the national instrument of Madagascar—directly evolved from an earlier form of zither carried with the first Austronesian settlers on their outrigger canoes.
The indigenous peoples of Western New Guinea in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, commonly called Papuans, are Melanesians. There is genetic evidence for two major historical lineages in New Guinea and neighboring islands: a first wave from the Malay Archipelago perhaps 50,000 years ago when New Guinea and Australia were a single landmass called Sahul and, much later, a wave of Austronesian people from the north who introduced Austronesian languages and pigs about 3,500 years ago. They also left a small but significant genetic trace in many coastal Papuan peoples.
Melanesians are the predominant and indigenous inhabitants of Melanesia, in an area stretching from New Guinea to the Fiji Islands. Most speak one of the many languages of the Austronesian language family or one of the many unrelated families of Papuan languages. There are several creoles of the region, such as Tok Pisin, Hiri Motu, Solomon Islands Pijin, Bislama, and Papuan Malay.
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 Austronesians arriving before the 5th century AD, then many centuries later with mostly Bantu Africans, but also some other ethnic groups. They speak the Merina dialect of the official Malagasy language of Madagascar.
The Betsileo are a highland ethnic group of Madagascar, the third largest in terms of population. They chose their name, meaning "The Many Invincible Ones", after a failed invasion by King Ramitraho of the Menabe kingdom in the early 19th century.
The Sakalava are an ethnic group of Madagascar. They are found on the western and northwest region of the island, in a band along the coast. The Sakalava are one of the smallest ethnic groups, constituting about 6.2 percent of the total population, that is about 2,079,000 in 2018. Their name means "people of the long valleys." They occupy the western edge of the island from Toliara in the south to the Sambirano River in the north.
The Mikea are a group of Malagasy-speaking horticulturalists and foragers who are often described as the lowland hunter-gatherers of Madagascar. They inhabit the Mikea Forest, a patch of mixed spiny forest and dry deciduous forest along the coast of southwestern Madagascar. The Mikea are predominantly of Sakalava origin, although the term describes a lifestyle rather than an ethnic group per se, and individuals from a variety of Malagasy ethnic groups are found among the Mikea. The family encampments of the Mikea shift from prime corn planting territory at the edge of the forest in the rainy season to the interior forest rich with tenrecs and other game in the dry season, when the community becomes highly dependent on spongy tubers to meet their daily demand for water. Their lifestyle is interdependent with that of their neighboring Vezo fishermen and the Masikoro farmers and herders, with whom they trade products caught, foraged or cultivated in the forest. Many Mikea also occasionally engage in paid work such as guarding the zebu herds or tending the corn fields of others.
There is a significant Asian presence in Africa of at least 3 million people. Most have arrived following European settlement in 1930s; however, there is continued immigration to the continent to pursue economic opportunities.
The Vezo is the term the semi-nomadic coastal people of southern Madagascar use to refer to people that have become accustomed to live from sea fishing. The Vezo speak a dialect of the Malagasy language, which is a branch of the Malayo-Polynesian language group derived from the Barito languages, spoken in southern Borneo. They currently populate most of the littoral zone along Madagascar's west coast between Toliara and Mahajanga.
Andriana was both the noble class and a title of nobility in Madagascar. Historically, many Malagasy ethnic groups lived in highly stratified caste-based social orders in which the andriana were the highest strata. They were above the Hova and Andevo (slaves). The Andriana and the Hova were a part of Fotsy, while the Andevo were Mainty in local terminology.
Malagasy is an Austronesian language and dialect continuum spoken in Madagascar. The standard variety, called Official Malagasy, is an official language of Madagascar alongside French.
The Antesaka, also known as Tesaka, or Tesaki, are an ethnic group of Madagascar traditionally concentrated south of Farafangana along the south-eastern coast. They have since spread more widely throughout the island. The Antesaka form about 5% of the population of Madagascar. They have mixed African, Arab and Malayo-Indonesian ancestry, like the western coastal Sakalava people of Madagascar from whom the clan derives. They traditionally have strong marriage taboos and complex funeral rites. The Antesaka typically cultivate coffee, bananas and rice, and those along the coast engage in fishing. A large portion of the population has emigrated to other parts of the island for work, with an estimated 40% of emigrants between 1948 and 1958 permanently settling outside the Antesaka homeland.
The Vazimba, according to popular belief, were the first inhabitants of Madagascar. While beliefs about the physical appearance of the Vazimba reflect regional variation, they are generally described as smaller in stature than the average person, leading some scientists to speculate that they may have been a pygmy people who migrated from the islands that constitute modern-day Indonesia and settled in Madagascar over the course of the period between 350 BCE–500 CE. Scientific evidence confirms the first arrival and subsequent increase of human settlers on the island during this period, but the pygmy theory has not been proven.
The Makoa are an ethnic group in Madagascar descended from enslaved people from mainland Africa that were traded through the major slave trading ports of northern Mozambique in an area mainly populated by the Makua people. They are among the last African diaspora communities in the world to issue from the slave trade. They are sometimes classified as a subgroup of the fishing peoples known as the Vezo, although the Makoa maintain a distinct identity, one reinforced by their larger physical stature and historic employment as police officers by the French colonial administration.
Accounts of Jews in Madagascar go back to the earliest ethnographic descriptions of the island, from the mid-17th century. Madagascar has a small Jewish population, including normative adherents as well as Judaic mystics, but the island has not historically been a significant center for Jewish settlement. Despite this, an enduring origin myth across Malagasy ethnic groups suggests that the island's inhabitants descended from ancient Jews, and thus that the modern Malagasy and Jewish peoples share a racial affinity. This belief, termed the "Malagasy secret", is so widespread that some Malagasy refer to the island's people as the Diaspora Jiosy Gasy. As a result, Jewish symbols, paraphernalia, and teachings have been integrated into the syncretic religious practices of some Malagasy populations. Similar notions of Madagascar's supposed Israelite roots persisted in European chronicles of the island until the early 20th century, and may have influenced a Nazi plan to relocate Europe's Jews to Madagascar. More recently, the possibility of Portuguese Jewish conversos making contact with Madagascar in the 15th century has been proposed.
Indonesia–Madagascar relations spans for over a millennium, since the ancestors of the people of Madagascar sailed across the Indian Ocean from the Nusantara 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, the embassy was never opened.
Malagasy weaving flourished until around 1950. Due to varied ecology in Madagascar, many different materials were used to weave with and formed various styles of mainly striped cloth.
