96 Fun Facts About Madagascar

Madagascar lies in which body of water?

The Indian Ocean surrounds Madagascar, which lies about 400 km off Africa's southeastern coast; that gap and its currents have kept the island's wildlife isolated.

Which island is bigger than Madagascar, the world's fourth-largest?

New Guinea and Greenland are two of the only three islands larger than Madagascar, which is itself bigger than mainland France, its former colonial ruler.

What is the capital and largest city of Madagascar?

Antananarivo, shortened locally to Tana, sits high in the central highlands, which gives the capital mild, dry winters in which frost is rare but not unknown.

Madagascar's nickname, the Great Red Island, comes from the colour of its what?

Soil: the rock of the central highlands weathers into red laterite, which washes away fast once the forest and grass cover above it are stripped.

Which two languages are official in Madagascar?

Malagasy and French are the two official languages; English was added as a third by the 2007 constitution but dropped again by the one voters approved in 2010.

The Malagasy language is most closely related to a language still spoken on which island?

Borneo is home to Ma'anyan, the closest relative of Malagasy; after many centuries apart, speakers of the two languages can no longer readily understand each other.

Which people, from the central highlands, are the most numerous of Madagascar's ethnic groups?

Merina kings built the 19th-century Kingdom of Madagascar, bringing most of the island under one crown before France abolished the monarchy in 1897.

Which 19th-century queen banned Christianity in Madagascar and pushed most foreigners out?

Ranavalona I, who reigned from 1828 to 1861, outlawed Christianity in 1835; within a year nearly all foreigners had left, and she kept the kingdom closed for a generation.

What is the name of Madagascar's currency?

Ariary notes replaced the Malagasy franc, and the unit is a rare non-decimal currency: one ariary divides into five iraimbilanja rather than a hundred of anything.

'Bourbon vanilla', the type grown in Madagascar, takes its name from the former name of which island?

It was on Réunion in 1841 that a 12-year-old enslaved boy, Edmond Albius, worked out how to hand-pollinate the orchid.

Outside Africa and Madagascar, which country has a native baobab?

Australia's boab is one of eight baobab species, six of them unique to Madagascar; a 2024 genome study pointed to the island as the place where the trees arose before spreading overseas.

The famous Avenue of the Baobabs runs along a road near which western town?

Morondava is the jumping-off point for the avenue, a short drive away, where towering Grandidier's baobabs line a dirt road and visitors gather to watch the sunset.

Reny is Malagasy for mother; the baobab's local name, renala, means what?

Mother of the forest suits giants that once stood in dense woodland: it was cleared as the population grew, leaving the baobabs of the famous avenue standing alone.

Madagascar is home to more species of which reptile than any other place on Earth?

Chameleons include Labord's chameleon of south-west Madagascar, which spends about eight months as an egg and then lives only four or five months after hatching.

The word 'lemur' comes from a Latin word meaning what?

Ghosts: the Romans' lemures were restless spirits of the dead, and Linnaeus borrowed the word in 1758 for animals that go about mainly by night.

Which Madagascan animal is the world's smallest primate?

Madame Berthe's mouse lemur weighs about 30 grams and measures some 9 cm from nose to rump; to save energy it slips into a daily torpor, letting its body temperature and metabolism drop.

Which lemur finds grubs by tapping on trees, then digging them out with a thin middle finger?

The aye-aye fills the niche of a woodpecker, a bird Madagascar lacks: it listens for hollows, gnaws in with ever-growing incisors and hooks out the grubs.

Which of these lemurs is famous for having only a rudimentary tail?

The indri has only a stub of a tail a few centimetres long; it is among the largest living lemurs, and its groups stake out territory with loud, wailing songs.

Male ring-tailed lemurs settle disputes with what kind of contest?

In 'stink fights', male ring-tailed lemurs draw their tails through scent glands on their wrists and chests, then wave the reeking tails at a rival until one backs down.

What is the largest mammalian carnivore native to Madagascar?

The fossa looks like a small cougar but belongs to a carnivore family found only in Madagascar; it hunts lemurs, chasing them through the treetops.

How does the Madagascar hissing cockroach make its signature sound?

Expelling air through breathing holes in its body makes the hiss, whereas most noisy insects rub body parts together; males also hiss when they fight.

Which extinct flightless giant of Madagascar may have been the largest of its kind that ever lived?

An elephant bird's closest living relative is New Zealand's little kiwi, DNA shows; the giants are thought to have died out around a millennium ago, after people settled the island.

Madagascar's first settlers are thought to have arrived in what kind of craft?

Outrigger canoes are generally assumed to have carried the first settlers from far-off Asia around the middle of the first millennium, centuries before migrants crossed from nearby Africa.

Which channel separates Madagascar from the African mainland?

The Mozambique Channel is about 400 km wide at its narrowest; migrants from East Africa crossed it to settle about a millennium ago.

The highland custom of famadihana involves doing what?

Exhuming ancestors and rewrapping them in fresh shrouds is the heart of this 'turning of the bones'; families then dance with the bodies to live music before reburying them.

Which sport, rather than football, is considered the national sport of Madagascar?

Rugby union draws crowds of up to 40,000 to watch the national side, the Makis, who warm up with a war dance of their own, much like New Zealand's haka.

The valiha, Madagascar's most emblematic instrument, is what kind of instrument?

A bamboo tube zither: the valiha is Madagascar's national instrument, and many modern players string it with unwound bicycle brake cable for a punchier sound.

The name of Madagascar's capital is usually translated as what?

City of the Thousand recalls the garrison of a thousand soldiers that King Andrianjaka posted on the hill after seizing it in the early 1600s.

Around 1700, the island of Sainte-Marie off Madagascar's east coast was a base for whom?

Pirates used Sainte-Marie as a hideout between raids, and many married into local families; a pirate cemetery still stands on the island.

Ilakaka grew from a hamlet into a boomtown after 1998 thanks to the discovery of which gem?

Sapphires found near Ilakaka in 1998 set off a rush that turned a truck stop of a few huts into a mining town supplying about half the world's stones within a decade.

What does Martyrs' Day, Madagascar's 29 March holiday, commemorate?

An uprising against French rule broke out on 29 March 1947 and spread over a third of the island before reinforcements crushed it with heavy loss of life.

Which cattle are central to Malagasy farming, wealth and ritual?

Zebu, the humped cattle, are a measure of a family's wealth and a centrepiece of ceremonies; early herders turned much of the island's forest into grassland to graze them.

In the 2005 DreamWorks film Madagascar, which zoo do Alex, Marty, Melman and Gloria escape from?

The four are stars of the Central Park Zoo in Manhattan; Marty the zebra bolts on his tenth birthday, hoping to catch a train from Grand Central to Connecticut.

Who voices Alex the lion in the Madagascar films?

Ben Stiller voices Alex, the zoo's pampered star lion, whose hunger in the wild gets so bad that he sinks his teeth into his best friend Marty the zebra.

Which comedian voices King Julien, the ring-tailed lemur, in the Madagascar films?

Sacha Baron Cohen voices King Julien, a two-line part until he improvised eight minutes of dialogue at his audition and the script was rewritten around him.

In the 2005 film Madagascar, the hijacked ship carrying the zoo animals is turned toward which continent?

Antarctica is where the penguins want to go: they take over the ship, and the sudden change of course tips the zoo animals' crates into the sea off Madagascar.

Which Madagascar co-director's temp track became Skipper's voice after Robert Stack died?

Tom McGrath recorded Skipper as a scratch track while the directors hoped to hire Robert Stack, the tough-guy star of The Untouchables; Stack died, and the temp voice stayed.

'I Like to Move It', the Madagascar films' recurring song, was originally recorded by which act?

Reel 2 Real released the dance hit in 1993 with vocals by the Mad Stuntman; the lemurs' version in the first film turned it into the theme song of the whole series.

As of 2025, which film is the highest-grossing entry in DreamWorks' Madagascar series?

Europe's Most Wanted (2012), in which the zoo animals hide in a travelling circus to get home, took about $747 million, roughly twice the Penguins spin-off's total.

The spin-off series All Hail King Julien premiered in 2014 on which platform?

Netflix premiered All Hail King Julien in December 2014 under a deal for hundreds of hours of DreamWorks shows; the earlier Penguins of Madagascar series had aired on Nickelodeon.

Madagascar broke away from which southern supercontinent that also held Africa and South America?

Gondwana began breaking up about 180 million years ago; Madagascar left Africa's side first and was finally cut adrift on its own some 90 million years ago.

Which traveller's garbled account is thought to have given Madagascar its name?

Marco Polo's memoirs mention a land of 'Madageiscar', apparently his garbled version of Mogadishu, the Somali port; the mistake stuck once Renaissance mapmakers copied it.

The king who united Madagascar's highlands called what the boundary of his rice field?

The sea: the saying meant he intended to rule the whole island, and his son Radama I went on to conquer most of it after his death in 1810.

What is the largest lake in Madagascar?

Lake Alaotra's reed beds are the only home of the Alaotra gentle lemur, the one bamboo lemur that lives among papyrus; rice farming is steadily eating into them.

In the 2005 film Madagascar, the escaped zoo animals are being shipped to a wildlife reserve in which country?

Kenya was the plan: after the animals' night-time breakout, pressure from animal-rights activists forced the zoo to send them to a reserve in the wild.

Who was the first president of independent Madagascar, serving from 1960 to 1972?

Philibert Tsiranana, a Tsimihety from the north, led Madagascar from independence in 1960 until student and worker protests forced him to hand power to General Gabriel Ramanantsoa in 1972.

Across the Madagascar franchise, tiny wide-eyed Mort is devoted to King Julien and fixated on which part of him?

His feet are Mort's obsession, to the king's constant irritation. Mort is Julien's most loyal subject, and the devotion annoys the king immensely.

Which dish, served up by the penguins, finally cures Alex the lion's hunger at the end of the 2005 film Madagascar?

Sushi wins Alex over: once the penguins feed it to him, he decides it beats the meals he was served back home.

Before people reached Madagascar, the island's largest lemur, Archaeoindris, grew to roughly the size of which animal?

A gorilla is the right scale for Archaeoindris, the largest primate known to have evolved on Madagascar. Its remains have turned up at only one site, in the centre of the island.

Which stand-up comedian voices Marty, the zebra who longs to leave the zoo for the wild, in the Madagascar films?

Chris Rock got the part because the directors were after an energetic Marty, and found that quality when they listened to him.

In the 2014 film Penguins of Madagascar, the villain Dave poses as a human scientist but is really what animal?

An octopus with a grudge, Dave wants revenge because the penguins upstaged him at the zoo where he was once an attraction.

Because so many of its plants and animals live nowhere else, Madagascar is sometimes called the eighth what?

Continent is the word some ecologists use for the island, where roughly nine in ten plant and animal species are found nowhere else on Earth.

In Madagascar 3, King Julien falls head over heels for a circus performer named Sonya, who is what animal?

A bear of the Eurasian brown kind, Sonya catches Julien's eye in Rome. The pair break up when the circus splits, then make up before the film ends.

Which Friends star voices Melman, the hypochondriac giraffe with a fear of germs, in the Madagascar films?

David Schwimmer was cast after the filmmakers listened to his voice on Friends and decided it suited the anxious giraffe.

Darwin predicted that a Madagascar orchid with a foot-long nectar spur must be pollinated by what kind of animal?

A moth with a tongue long enough was found 21 years after Darwin died, vindicating a guess that had been ridiculed.

Some of Madagascar's tenrecs grow spines and roll into a ball, closely resembling which unrelated animal?

A hedgehog is the look-alike, yet the two are not close kin: the tenrecs' nearest relatives are otter shrews, followed by golden moles.

In the 2005 film Madagascar, a starving Alex the lion starts to hallucinate his friends as which food?

Steaks were what Alex was fed at the zoo, so going without them wakes his predatory instincts and he flees to protect his friends.

Which actress voices Gloria, the sassy hippopotamus who is one of Alex's closest friends, in the Madagascar films?

Jada Pinkett Smith voices the grown-up hippo, while her daughter Willow voiced Gloria as a calf.

The spin-off series The Penguins of Madagascar, set back at the zoo, premiered on which children's network?

Nickelodeon made it the first Nicktoon co-produced with DreamWorks Animation, and the series premiere drew 6.1 million viewers.

Which Oscar-winning composer scored the 2005 film Madagascar and came back for both of its sequels?

Hans Zimmer scored all three main films, though the 2014 penguin spin-off went to Lorne Balfe instead.

In the 2014 film Penguins of Madagascar, which actor voices Classified, the wolf who leads the North Wind spy team?

Benedict Cumberbatch plays the wolf, whose true name is never revealed: Skipper simply calls him Classified because it is top secret.

Madagascar is the world's second-largest island country; which Asian archipelago nation is the largest?

Indonesia is both the largest and the most populated island country, and the fourth most populated country of any kind.

Madagascar's south-western port city of Toliara sits close to which imaginary line around the globe?

Tropic of Capricorn runs close by the port, whose old spelling, Tulear, lives on in the name of the Coton de Tulear dog breed that originated there.

In 1942's Operation Ironclad, Allied troops seized Madagascar to keep its ports from which country's navy?

Japan had the longest-ranged submarines of any Axis power, and the Allies feared they would turn the island into a forward base.

The needle-sharp 'forests' of Madagascar's Tsingy de Bemaraha reserve are carved from which kind of stone?

Limestone gives the reserve its spires, undercut and gouged into fissures by groundwater. The word tsingy can be translated as the place where one cannot walk barefoot.

Darwin's bark spider of Madagascar spins the toughest biological material ever studied and hangs its webs over what?

Rivers and other open water are its hunting ground, a habitat no other spider can use. Its silk is over ten times tougher than a similar piece of Kevlar.

The penguins of the Madagascar films were first designed for a scrapped DreamWorks project in which they were what?

A Beatles-style band of penguins was the idea behind Rockumentary, a film DreamWorks scrapped in 2001. Once Madagascar was under way, its co-director revived them as a commando unit.

In the 2005 film Madagascar, Marty the zebra slips out of the zoo hoping to catch a train to which US state?

Connecticut is as far as Marty's idea of the wild reaches. He gets only as far as the rail terminal, where officers subdue him and the friends who chased after him.

In Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, King Julien proposes a sacrifice to what in order to bring back the water?

A volcano near the reserve is Julien's answer to the dried-up watering hole. A lovesick Melman volunteers to jump in, until Gloria stops him.

In Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, the reserve's giraffes appoint the newly arrived Melman to which job?

Witch doctor is the post Melman lands, after he is distressed to learn that the reserve has no medics of any kind.

At the end of Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, Skipper the penguin marries an object salvaged from the plane; what is it?

A bobblehead doll becomes Skipper's bride, and the penguins and chimpanzees then fly off together on the honeymoon.

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa is dedicated to which late comedian, the voice of Alex's father Zuba?

Bernie Mac died three months before the sequel reached cinemas. Soul Men, another of his final films, carried a dedication to him too.

Which actor voices Makunga, the scheming rival lion with a black pompadour mane, in Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa?

Alec Baldwin voices the villain, who tricks Alex into a trial of strength he mistakes for a talent contest and then seizes the title of alpha lion.

Which musician voices Moto Moto, the smooth-talking hippo who courts Gloria in Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa?

Will.i.am also contributed five songs to the sequel's soundtrack, sharing the music duties with the film's composer.

In Madagascar 3, Alex and friends track the penguins and chimps to a casino in which Mediterranean resort?

Monte Carlo is where the penguins win a fortune, money they later use to buy an entire circus from its human ringmaster.

Which Breaking Bad actor voices Vitaly, the Siberian tiger who once leapt through shrinking hoops, in Madagascar 3?

Bryan Cranston plays the Russian big cat, whose signature stunt went wrong, costing him his passion and sending the circus into decline.

Which actress voices Captain Chantel DuBois, the relentless animal-control officer hunting Alex in Madagascar 3?

Frances McDormand took the villain as her first role in an animated film. DuBois is determined to add the lion's head to her taxidermy collection.

Which sidekick of talk-show host Conan O'Brien voices Mort, King Julien's biggest fan, in the Madagascar films?

Andy Richter has kept the part well beyond the cinema, voicing the tiny lemur again in the TV spin-offs The Penguins of Madagascar and All Hail King Julien.

Which voice actor took over King Julien for the TV series The Penguins of Madagascar and All Hail King Julien?

Danny Jacobs also voiced the king in the 2009 Christmas special Merry Madagascar, even though the four lead film actors all returned for it.

Which Happy Days star voices the villainous Uncle King Julien in the Madagascar spin-off series All Hail King Julien?

Henry Winkler plays the deposed tyrant, who hands his nephew the crown expecting him to be eaten, then schemes to win it back.

In the Madagascar films, how does Phil, the silent chimpanzee partner of the talkative Mason, communicate?

Sign language is how Phil talks to Mason, with a twist: Phil is the one who can read, while Mason cannot.

In the TV special Merry Madagascar, what does Santa Claus lose after Alex shoots his sleigh out of the sky?

His memory goes in the crash, so the zoo animals deliver the presents themselves, with the penguins using magic dust to fly.

The Madagascar spin-off All Hail King Julien, which shows how Julien gained the lemur throne, is set when?

Before the first film is the setting: the new king at once legalises noise and public events, which his predecessor had banned.

Sifakas, the Madagascar lemurs made famous by the PBS show Zoboomafoo, cross open ground in which way?

Hopping sideways on two legs, forelimbs held up for balance, is how they cover ground. In the trees they can leap up to 10 metres from one trunk to the next.

In Madagascar, a 'fady' can forbid pointing at a tomb or calling a newborn ugly; what is a fady?

A taboo of this kind is believed to be enforced by supernatural powers. The Malagasy word for please, azafady, literally asks that something not be fady.

Madagascar, a former French colony, has produced a world champion in which ball game?

Pétanque, played by tossing metal balls at a small target, is common in Madagascar's urban areas and throughout the highlands.

Which director of The Squid and the Whale co-wrote the screenplay for the animated sequel Madagascar 3?

Noah Baumbach did sixty pages of rewrites on the script, the studio's chief revealed in 2010, and he ended up with a writing credit.

Which co-director of Antz went on to direct all three Madagascar films and the 2014 penguin spin-off?

Eric Darnell is the only director credited on all four features, sharing the chair with a different line-up on the last two.

Alex the lion of the Madagascar films was born on an African reserve under which original name?

Alakay was the cub's name until poachers crated him up. The crate fell into the sea and drifted all the way to America, where he was renamed.

Which DreamWorks Animation chief supplied the grunts of Rico the penguin, uncredited, in the 2005 film Madagascar?

Jeffrey Katzenberg voiced the one penguin who never speaks, an irony the film's producer called Dadaistic.

In the Madagascar spin-off All Hail King Julien, which crowned lemur is the king's fierce bodyguard and security chief?

Clover captains the royal Ringtail Guard and, off duty, writes fantasy novels about a warrior princess based on herself.

Which fan-shaped plant on Madagascar's national emblem is named for the rainwater held in its leaf sheaths?

Traveller's palm sheaths were supposed to offer a needy walker an emergency drink. It is not a true palm at all, and its fan tends to line up east to west.

Andry Rajoelina, who took power in Madagascar in 2009, began his working life in which job?

Disc jockey in the capital's nightclubs was his first trade, before event promotion and advertising. He then served as the capital's mayor on his way to the presidency.

Madagascar's emblematic pale lager, brewed since 1958 and known locally by its initials, is named after three what?

Horses, as in Three Horses Beer, though locals mostly call it by its initials. The brand has sponsored Madagascar's national football championship.

Romazava, the national dish of Madagascar usually eaten with rice, is what kind of food?

A beef and greens stew at heart, it is set apart by anamalao flowers, which give the broth a mild numbing effect.

Nosy Be, Madagascar's busiest tourist destination, is nicknamed the scented island and grows which perfume flower?

Ylang-ylang plantations, grown for essential oils, took over from the sugar cane that once dominated the island's economy.