Antananarivo & the Central Highlands

The central plateau is Imerina, the land of the Merina, whose ancestors settled the highlands and turned its marshes into rice fields over many centuries. By the 1700s Imerina was split among rival chiefdoms until Andrianampoinimerina, ruling from the fortified hill of Ambohimanga, reunited them at the end of the century and moved his capital to Antananarivo, one of the twelve sacred hills of Imerina. His son Radama I allied with Britain, welcomed missionaries of the London Missionary Society who wrote Malagasy in the Latin alphabet, and extended Merina rule over most of the island.

Ranavalona I, who succeeded him in 1828, expelled the missionaries and persecuted Malagasy Christians, yet employed the Frenchman Jean Laborde to build an industrial complex at Mantasoa. Under Ranavalona II, baptised in 1869, Protestantism became the court religion, and the prime minister Rainilaiarivony governed the kingdom for three decades while marrying three successive queens.

France took Antananarivo in 1895, abolished the monarchy in 1897 and sent Ranavalona III into exile; the Menalamba rising against the French and the converted elite was put down in the highlands. The 1947 uprising broke out mainly in the east, but its political leaders were tried in the capital. Since independence in 1960, Antananarivo has been where power changes hands: its mass protests led to the 2009 crisis that brought the city's mayor Andry Rajoelina to power, and in 2025 youth-led protests over water and power cuts culminated in a coup by the CAPSAT army unit that removed Rajoelina.

The Merina are the largest group in Madagascar and have long dominated its administration and education, which still colours relations with the coastal peoples, who call highlanders by old names that are not always kind. Merina society kept a memory of rank — noble andriana, commoner hova and the descendants of slaves — that still matters in marriage in some families. Most Merina are Protestant or Catholic, and the capital's memorial churches stand on sites where Christians were executed under Ranavalona I.

The ancestors are everywhere. Family tombs of stone and concrete stand on the hillsides and in the paddies, and the famadihana, when the dead are brought out, rewrapped in new silk shrouds and danced with before reburial, is a highland custom usually held once every five to seven years. Hira gasy troupes, in red jackets and straw hats, perform day-long shows of music, dance and moral speeches called kabary, and the art of kabary oratory is itself admired at weddings and funerals.

Highlanders wear the lamba, a white wrap draped over the shoulders, and the valiha tube-zither remains the emblematic instrument. Crafts include silk weaving, the recycled-aluminium cooking pots of Ambatolampy, and the gem and horn workshops of Antsirabe.

Antananarivo sprawls across its ridges and the paddies below, with about three million people in the wider urban area. The old upper town, around the Rova and Haute-Ville, holds brick houses with balconies; Analakely market and Independence Avenue form the busy lower town; and rice fields still flood at the city's edge. Antsirabe, with about 250,000 people, is the second city of the plateau, and Ambatolampy, Arivonimamo and Tsiroanomandidy are market towns.

The capital concentrates Madagascar's government, banks, universities, textile factories and export-processing firms, while the countryside lives on rice, vegetables, dairy farming around Antsirabe, and fruit. Antsirabe is home to the Star brewery and many small workshops.

Days begin early in the cool air, with rice porridge or fritters from a street stall, and the city jams with minibuses called taxi-be by seven. Power cuts and water shortages, the anger behind the 2025 protests, are daily concerns, as are flooding in the low quarters during the rains and the cost of rice.

Highland cooking is the Malagasy standard. Breakfast is vary sosoa, a soft rice porridge, often eaten with kitoza, smoked strips of zebu meat, or mofo gasy, sweetened rice-flour cakes cooked in moulds over charcoal. Lunch and dinner are rice with a laoka: romazava, the beef-and-greens broth; ravitoto sy henakisoa, pounded cassava leaves with pork; or voanjobory, Bambara groundnuts stewed with pork.

Varanga, shredded roast beef, was among the dishes eaten at Merina royal festivals. Street food includes masikita, skewers of grilled zebu; sambos, fried pastries of Indian origin; and koba, a sweet log of ground peanuts and sugar wrapped in rice-flour paste.

Antsirabe's food industry includes dairy products, and its brewery makes Three Horses Beer. Ranovola, the burnt-rice water, accompanies meals, and home-distilled toaka gasy is drunk at family ceremonies.

Antananarivo is best seen from its heights. The Rova, the royal compound on the highest hill, has the stone walls of the Manjakamiadana palace, burned in 1995 and since restored, with views over Lake Anosy and the city. Nearby are the Andafiavaratra palace of the prime ministers, now a museum, and the old upper town, while Tsimbazaza park has a botanical garden and zoo of native animals. About 24 kilometres north-east, the Royal Hill of Ambohimanga, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, keeps the wooden house of Andrianampoinimerina, the queens' summer pavilions, royal tombs and gateways closed by great stone discs.

West of the capital, the Lemurs' Park lets visitors see rescued lemurs of several species up close, and further on, Lake Itasy lies among volcanic cones near Ampefy, with the Analavory geyser in the area.

South along the RN7, Ambatolampy's pot foundries lead to Antsirabe, with its Hôtel des Thermes, cathedral and pousse-pousse rickshaws. Around it are the crater lakes of Andraikiba and Tritriva, the latter deep and green inside its volcanic cone, and the town of Betafo, whose highland rice terraces, stepping down the hillsides, are among the finest on the plateau. The Ankaratra massif rises to more than 2,600 metres to the west of the road, and to the north-east the forest of Anjozorobe-Angavo shelters lemurs within reach of the capital.