Madagascar+Geography

Geography


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= = ====Covered in red soil and rain forests, Madagascar has a very unique geography. The current population living on this country is estimated to be 22,585,517 people. Madagascar is the fourth largest island on the planet, located off of the southeastern coast of Africa in the western Indian Ocean. Madagascar can be divided into 5 geographical regions: the east coast, the Tsaratanana Massif in the north, the central highlands, the west coast, and the southwest. It has a narrow coastal plain but has high plateaus and mountains towards the center of the island. Madagascar has 3 climate regions, tropical along the coast, temperate inland, and arid in the south. Years of torrential rainfall have created tsingy, or limestone formations in the north and west parts of the country. ====

Tsingy - limestone formations  The island is often referred to as the "Great Red Island," because it is covered in red soil. However, this red soil is generally poor for agriculture. Because of deforestation, overgrazing, soil erosion, and desertification little resources are found in Madagascar. However, there are some natural resources found on the island, such as graphite, chromite, coal, bauxite, rare earth elements, salt, quartz, tar sands, semiprecious, mica, and hydropower. Orchid plants are also used to make vanilla. __Wildlife __There are approximately 200,000 known species on the island of Madagascar and roughly 150,000 of those species are only found on the island. Unique to Madagascar are more than 50 types of lemurs, 99% of its frog species, and 36 genera of birds.

Information from: [] [] **© 2012 Amanda Richter - Revised April 25th, 2012 ** **Email: amandarichter@ilstu.edu ** **<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Ph: 309-638-2749 **