28,812,195 (2023 est.)
noun: Malagasy (singular and plural)
adjective: Malagasy
Malayo-Indonesian (Merina and related Betsileo), Cotiers (mixed African, Malayo-Indonesian, and Arab ancestry - Betsimisaraka, Tsimihety, Antaisaka, Sakalava), French, Indian, Creole, Comoran
Malagasy (official) 99.9%, French (official) 23.6%, English 8.2%, other 0.6% (2018 est.)
note: shares sum to more than 100% because some respondents gave more than one answer on the census
Church of Jesus Christ in Madagascar/Malagasy Lutheran Church/Anglican Church 34%, Roman Catholic 32.3%, other Christian 8.1%, traditional/Animist 1.7%, Muslim 1.4%, other 0.6%, none 21.9% (2021 est.)
Madagascar’s youthful population – nearly 60% are under the age of 25 as of 2020 – and moderately high total fertility rate of more than 3.6 children per woman ensures that the Malagasy population will continue its rapid growth trajectory for the foreseeable future. The population is predominantly rural and poor; chronic malnutrition is prevalent, and large families are the norm. Many young Malagasy girls are withdrawn from school, marry early (often pressured to do so by their parents), and soon begin having children. Early childbearing, coupled with Madagascar’s widespread poverty and lack of access to skilled health care providers during delivery, increases the risk of death and serious health problems for young mothers and their babies.
Child marriage perpetuates gender inequality and is prevalent among the poor, the uneducated, and rural households – as of 2018, 40% of Malagasy women aged 20 to 24 were married. Although the legal age for marriage is 18, parental consent is often given for earlier marriages or the law is flouted, especially in rural areas that make up approximately 60% of the country. Forms of arranged marriage whereby young girls are married to older men in exchange for oxen or money are traditional. If a union does not work out, a girl can be placed in another marriage, but the dowry paid to her family diminishes with each unsuccessful marriage.
Madagascar’s population consists of 18 main ethnic groups, all of whom speak the same Malagasy language. Most Malagasy are multi-ethnic, however, reflecting the island’s diversity of settlers and historical contacts (see Background). Madagascar’s legacy of hierarchical societies practicing domestic slavery (most notably the Merina Kingdom of the 16th to the 19th century) is evident today in persistent class tension, with some ethnic groups maintaining a caste system. Slave descendants are vulnerable to unequal access to education and jobs, despite Madagascar’s constitutional guarantee of free compulsory primary education and its being party to several international conventions on human rights. Historical distinctions also remain between central highlanders and coastal people.
0-14 years: 37.47% (male 5,451,018/female 5,343,865)
15-64 years: 58.72% (male 8,481,873/female 8,437,644)
65 years and over: 3.81% (2023 est.) (male 506,495/female 591,300)
2023 population pyramid: 
total dependency ratio: 74.5
youth dependency ratio: 68.8
elderly dependency ratio: 5.8
potential support ratio: 17.4 (2021 est.)
total: 21 years (2023 est.)
male: 20.9 years
female: 21.2 years
2.22% (2023 est.)
28.1 births/1,000 population (2023 est.)
5.9 deaths/1,000 population (2023 est.)
0 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2023 est.)
most of population lives on the eastern half of the island; significant clustering is found in the central highlands and eastern coastline as shown in this 
urban population: 40.6% of total population (2023)
rate of urbanization: 4.26% annual rate of change (2020-25 est.)
3.872 million ANTANANARIVO (capital) (2023)
at birth: 1.03 male(s)/female
0-14 years: 1.02 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 1.01 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.86 male(s)/female
total population: 1.01 male(s)/female (2023 est.)
19.5 years (2021 est.)
note: data represents median age at first birth among women 25-29
392 deaths/100,000 live births (2020 est.)
total: 38.3 deaths/1,000 live births (2023 est.)
male: 41.6 deaths/1,000 live births
female: 34.8 deaths/1,000 live births
total population: 68.5 years (2023 est.)
male: 67.1 years
female: 69.9 years
3.55 children born/woman (2023 est.)
1.75 (2023 est.)
49.7% (2020)
improved: urban: 85% of population
rural: 38% of population
total: 56.1% of population
unimproved: urban: 15% of population
rural: 62% of population
total: 43.9% of population (2020 est.)
3.9% of GDP (2020)
0.2 physicians/1,000 population (2018)
0.2 beds/1,000 population
improved: urban: 49.2% of population
rural: 22.1% of population
total: 32.6% of population
unimproved: urban: 50.8% of population
rural: 77.9% of population
total: 67.4% of population (2020 est.)
degree of risk: very high (2023)
food or waterborne diseases: bacterial diarrhea, hepatitis A, and typhoid fever
vectorborne diseases: malaria and dengue fever
water contact diseases: schistosomiasis
animal contact diseases: rabies
note: on 31 August 2023, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a Travel Alert for polio in Africa; Madagascar is currently considered a high risk to travelers for circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses (cVDPV); vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) is a strain of the weakened poliovirus that was initially included in oral polio vaccine (OPV) and that has changed over time and behaves more like the wild or naturally occurring virus; this means it can be spread more easily to people who are unvaccinated against polio and who come in contact with the stool or respiratory secretions, such as from a sneeze, of an “infected” person who received oral polio vaccine; the CDC recommends that before any international travel, anyone unvaccinated, incompletely vaccinated, or with an unknown polio vaccination status should complete the routine polio vaccine series; before travel to any high-risk destination, the CDC recommends that adults who previously completed the full, routine polio vaccine series receive a single, lifetime booster dose of polio vaccine
5.3% (2016)
total: 0.89 liters of pure alcohol (2019 est.)
beer: 0.5 liters of pure alcohol (2019 est.)
wine: 0.07 liters of pure alcohol (2019 est.)
spirits: 0.32 liters of pure alcohol (2019 est.)
other alcohols: 0 liters of pure alcohol (2019 est.)
total: 27.8% (2020 est.)
male: 42.7% (2020 est.)
female: 12.8% (2020 est.)
22.6% (2021)
60.1% (2023 est.)
women married by age 15: 12.7%
women married by age 18: 38.8%
men married by age 18: 11.2% (2021 est.)
3.1% of GDP (2020 est.)
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 77.3%
male: 78.8%
female: 75.8% (2021)
total: 10 years
male: 10 years
female: 10 years (2018)
NOTE: The information regarding Madagascar on this page is re-published from the 2024 World Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence Agency and other sources. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Madagascar 2024 information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Madagascar 2024 should be addressed to the CIA or the source cited on each page.
This page was last modified 04 May 24, Copyright © 2024 ITA all rights reserved.
