Countries
Key facts
- Capital
- Antananarivo
- Region
- Africa, Eastern Africa
- Population
- 32,740,678 (2025)
- Area
- 587,040 km²
- Currency
- Malagasy ariary (MGA)
- Languages
- French, Malagasy
- Calling code
- +261
- Internet domain
- .mg
- ISO codes
- MG, MDG, 450
- Time zone
- UTC+3:00
- United Nations
- Member state
- Postal code pattern
- ### (# = digit, @ = letter)
Land and position
Madagascar covers about 587,040 square kilometres. By area it ranks 48th among the 250 countries and territories on this site. It is a little smaller than Botswana and a little larger than Kenya. It has no land border with any other country. Its centre lies at about 20° south, 47° east, in the southern hemisphere.
People
About 32.7 million people live in Madagascar (World Bank, 2025). That makes it the 49th most populous of the 246 places on this site with a figure, with about 0.4 percent of the world's people. On average there are 56 people to each square kilometre. About 33 percent of people live in towns and cities (World Bank, 2025). A baby born there can expect to live about 64 years (World Bank, 2024). Languages listed for it: French, Malagasy. A person from Madagascar is called Malagasy.
Money and economy
The currency is the Malagasy ariary (code MGA, symbol Ar). The World Bank puts the size of its economy (GDP) at about US$ 19.6 billion (2025), which is about US$ 599 for each person (2025).
Time
Madagascar uses one time zone, UTC+3:00 (Indian/Antananarivo). Clocks stay the same all year: there is no daylight saving time.
Time now: loading
Offsets are for January 2026. See Time Zones for a converter.
Largest cities
| City | People |
|---|---|
| Antananarivo | 1,349,501 |
| Toamasina | 345,107 |
| Antsirabe | 260,907 |
| Mahajanga | 260,556 |
| Fianarantsoa | 203,105 |
| Toliara | 178,725 |
City figures are from GeoNames and count the city itself, not the wider urban area. They can be some years old, so use them to see the order of size.
More in Eastern Africa
British Indian Ocean Territory, Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi. See the whole region.
Figures were collected on 11 November 2026 from the World Bank, GeoNames and the open countries data set. See About and data sources. Borders and names follow those sources and do not express any view on disputed territory.