The island of Madagascar, now known as the Malagsy republic, associated with the French community lies 240 miles south-east of Africaacross the mozambique channel. It is fifth largest island in the Worldwith 980 miles long and 360 miles breadth at its widest part.
It is one of the poorest country of the world with national average per capita income using atlas method (est. 2003) is 290 $, its rank from the bottom is 19th. and from the top 169th.
Rank in other methods, GDP (NOMINAL) pper capita, in IMF (est.2007),WB (est.2007), CIA (est.2008) in US $
Rank/est.........rank/est...........rank/est
164/392..........156/372.........168/376.
Pre-history
The recorded history of Madagascar began in the 7th. centurywhen Arabs established tradingposts along the north-west coast of the island.Actually the first human settlers arrived from South-east Asiai.e. Indonesia and Malayasia. This explains the range of malagasy features, which formed the mixtures of Austriasians, Africans, as well as Arab, india and later Europeans. The European contact began in the 1500s when Portuguese Diego Dias found that his sheep was out of the fleet going for India.
In the late 17th.century the french established trading posts along the east coast, from about 1774-1824 it was a favourite haunt for pirates including Americans one of whom brought malagasy rice to South carolina.
