ABSTRACT
The Republic of Madagascar is an island of 226,658 square miles. It is 980 miles long and, at its widest point, 360 miles across, and lies in the Indian Ocean about 300 miles off the southeast coast of Africa. It has a population of about 11 million. Despite the island’s proximity to Africa, the people are of Malayo-Indonesian stock, with some African and Arab admixture, particularly on the coasts. The capi-
tal, Antananarivo, a city of about half a million people, is on the high central plateau at an elevation of over 4,000 feet.
