Madagascar: Flag and Facts

About Madagascar

Red means sovereignty, green means hope, and white means purity. The country's national symbols are the traveller's palm, also called ravenala, and the zebu.

Humans reached this huge island late compared with most of the world. There are signs of people in the millennia B.C., but large settlement began between A.D. 350 and 550, when newcomers sailed in from what is now Indonesia. Arab and Persian traders came by the 7th century, and African migrants around A.D. 1000. Later, pirates made it a stronghold, and the slave trade ran through it until the 19th century. The Merina Kingdom controlled much of it from the 16th century until France conquered it in 1896. Independence came on 26 June 1960. A high central plateau and mountains sit behind a thin coastal plain, and the south is dry.

Did you know?

• Maromokotro is the tallest mountain on Madagascar at 2,876 m.
• Half of Madagascar's people are younger than 20.5 years.
• Madagascar covers 587,041 square kilometers, close to double the area of Arizona.