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Before the Latin alphabet, Malagasy was written in Arabic-derived Sorabe script — sacred manuscripts of astrology and medicine kept by the Antaimoro’s ombiasy sages.

Half history, half myth, the Vazimba are remembered as Madagascar’s first inhabitants — venerated as the oldest ancestors and claimed by the kings who later ruled the island.

Madagascar has roughly eighteen ethnic groups — highlanders and côtiers — all speaking one Austronesian language. A traveller’s map to who’s who and why it matters.

Madagascar’s first people didn’t come from nearby Africa — they crossed the Indian Ocean by canoe from Southeast Asia. The migration that still defines Malagasy identity.

Madagascar split from Africa ~165 million years ago and from India ~88 million years ago. That deep-time isolation is why 90% of its wildlife lives nowhere else.

Radama I united two-thirds of Madagascar, was the first king recognised by Britain, and in 1823 switched Malagasy to the Latin alphabet — a choice that still shapes the language.

Antananarivo rose from twelve sacred hills — former capitals, royal birthplaces and tombs that are the cradle of the Merina kingdom. What they mean and which to visit.

How a highland king reunified Imerina after decades of civil war and set Madagascar on the path to unification — ‘the sea is the boundary of my rice field.’