Antsiranana

The great bay at Madagascar's northern tip was known to navigators long before it had a European town on it, and the name Diego Suarez comes from sixteenth-century Portuguese voyages. The shores were Antankarana and Sakalava country, and in the seventeenth century the coast was worked by traders and by pirates who used the northern anchorages.

The modern city dates from 1885, when the treaty ending the first Franco-Merina war ceded the bay to France. The navy chose it as its principal base in the south-west Indian Ocean: dry docks, arsenals, coaling wharves and barracks were built, and a grid of streets, arcaded shops and administrative buildings rose on the high ground above the harbour, with troops and labourers drawn from Madagascar, the Comoros and France. Diego Suarez became one of the most European towns on the island, with a floating population of sailors that shaped its bars and its music.

In May 1942 British and allied forces landed near the bay and fought Vichy French troops for the harbour, in the operation that opened the Battle of Madagascar, fearing that Japan might use the base. The naval station continued after independence in 1960, and French forces withdrew between 1973 and 1975; their departure cost the city much of its livelihood. Renamed Antsiranana in 1975 — the name means the port — it has since lived on the commercial port, ship repair, fishing, a university, and a tourist trade drawn by the beaches and the parks. The old French name is still the one most people use.

Antsiranana is a port city and shows it. Antankarana and Sakalava culture is the base, with Tsimihety and highland Malagasy migrants, Comorian families, Indian and Pakistani traders known as Karana, and the descendants of French naval personnel layered on top. Islam is prominent alongside Christianity and ancestral religion, and mosques, churches and doany shrines stand within the same streets.

Royal ancestors matter in the north. The Antankarana kings' relics are kept at shrines and honoured in ceremonies, and tromba possession, in which mediums speak with the voices of dead rulers, is part of religious life rather than a spectacle. The Sugarloaf islet in the bay has been protected by the commune since 1999. Local fady vary from village to village and are explained by guides.

Salegy, the fast accordion-and-guitar dance music of northern Madagascar, is at home here, and the city's bars and street parties keep later hours than anywhere on the plateau. Women wear brightly printed lamba wraps and often masonjoany, a paste of ground wood spread on the face as sun protection and decoration. French is more commonly heard than in the interior, the northern dialect of Malagasy differs noticeably from the Merina standard, and the pace of the day is set by the heat: early mornings, a long midday pause and sociable evenings in the sea breeze.

About 115,000 people live in Antsiranana, which makes it the largest city of the far north. The colonial grid on the headland holds the administration, shops and restaurants; denser quarters of tin-roofed houses spread inland and up the slopes, and the fishing village of Ramena and the settlements along the bay road form a loose outer edge of the city.

The port is the anchor: commercial cargo, ship repair in the old naval dockyard, fishing boats, sugar and salt moving inland, cocoa going out, and the cruise ships that call from time to time. Around it sit trade, transport, a university and technical institutions, government offices, and the tourism business of guides, drivers, boatmen and guesthouses that has grown up since the navy left. Work is scarce and many people live by small-scale trading; the loss of the naval base is still spoken of as the moment the city's fortunes turned.

Days start early and quietly; the market is busiest before the heat, shops close for a long lunch, and the evening brings people out to the streets and the seafront air. Water and power cuts are a routine irritation, as they are across the country, and the wind — which blows hard for months and coats everything in dust in the dry season — shapes daily life as much as the rain does in summer.

The city eats from the sea. Fish, prawns, crab, octopus, squid and lobster are grilled over charcoal or cooked in coconut milk and served with rice, and the simplest version — a fish from the morning's catch grilled at a table near the beach at Ramena — is the local idea of a good meal. Chicken in coconut sauce is the standard coastal laoka, and the greens-and-beef romazava of the highlands appears on most menus too.

Trade has left its mark on the cooking. The Indian and Comorian communities gave the north its sambos, the fried pastries known elsewhere as samosas, along with curries, biryani and spiced minced-meat dishes; the French left baguettes, pâtisseries and a habit of coffee in the arcaded cafés of the centre. Zebu brochettes, grilled corn and cassava are sold on the streets at dusk.

The region's crops flavour the rest: vanilla from the Sava coast to the east, cocoa and coffee from the Sambirano valley to the west, pepper, cloves and abundant fruit — mangoes, cashews, lychees in season, coconuts drunk fresh. Cane rum is the spirit, usually as rhum arrangé steeped with vanilla, ginger or fruit; Three Horses Beer is the standard beer, and tamarind and baobab-fruit juices are the everyday soft drinks.