Two thousand years ago, Madagascar was probably uninhabited. An island twice the size of Great Britain, it was home to unique species of flora & fauna that were undisturbed by humanity until the first navigators landed on its shores. Since then, the changes imposed by humans on the wide range of environments to be found in this mini-continent have formed one of the threads of Madagascar`s history. No one knows where the island`s first inhabitants came from, but there was a strong connection from the earliest period to the islands of South East Asia
- today`s Indonesia. Austronesians, Arabs, Portuguese, & Dutch sailors & traders successively dominated the sea-lanes around Madagascar, some of the world`s oldest long-distance shipping routes. Over the centuries, Madagascar developed its own distinctive language & cultural systems, absorbing migrants from every shore of the Indian Ocean. In the nineteenth century, Britain & France projected a new type of global power that had a major effect on the isl&, which became a French colony from 1896 to 1960. Throughout this colourful & often turbulent history, the tension between the formation of a highly original culture & the absorption of immigrants, the development of strong social hierarchies, a long experience of slavery & the slave trade, have all had effects that are still felt today. Now home to 17 million people, Madagascar is one of the world`s most fascinating & least-known societies.