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Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar (older name Malagasy Republic, Malagasy: Repoblikan'i Madagasikara [republiˈkʲan madaɡasˈkʲarə̥], French: République de Madagascar) is an islandcountry located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa. The nation comprises the island of Madagascar (the fourth-largest island in the world), as well as numerous smaller peripheralislands. Following the prehistoric breakup of the supercontinent Gondwana, Madagascar split from India around 88 million years ago, allowing plants and animals on the island to evolve in completeisolation. Consequently, Madagascar is a biodiversity hotspot in which over 90% of its wildlife is found nowhere else on Earth. The island's diverse ecosystems and unique wildlife are threatened by humansettlement.
Initial human settlement of Madagascar occurred from 350 BCE and 550 CE by Austronesian peoples arriving on outrigger canoes from Borneo who were later joined around 1000 CE by Bantumigrants crossing the Mozambique Channel. Other groups continued to settle on Madagascar over time, each one making lasting contributions to Malagasy cultural life. The Malagasy ethnic group is often dividedinto eighteen or more sub-groups of which the largest are the Merina of the central highlands.
Until the late 18th century, the island of Madagascar was ruled by a fragmented assortment of shiftingsocio-political alliances. Beginning in the early 19th century, the majority of the island was united and ruled as the Kingdom of Madagascar by a series of Merina nobles. The monarchy collapsed whenthe island was conquered and absorbed into the French colonial empire in 1896, from which the island gained independence in 1960. The autonomous state of Madagascar has since undergone four majorconstitutional periods, termed Republics. Since 1992 the nation has officially been governed as a constitutional democracy from its capital at Antananarivo. However, in a popular uprising in 2009 the...