Madagascar country guide — sources, map method and licences Prepared 24 October 2026. Scope: 24 regions, 24 regional capitals, nine waters, sixteen sights, ten illustrated topics, thirty FAQs, eighty reviewed Facts questions and existing Malagasy lessons. Geography is generalised for learning and is not a navigation, cadastral or maritime-boundary product. REGIONS BNGRC / OCHA ROSA district reference (119 districts, 2020), distributed by geoBoundaries gbOpen MDG ADM2, CC BY 3.0 IGO: https://www.geoboundaries.org/api/current/gbOpen/MDG/ADM2/ https://github.com/wmgeolab/geoBoundaries/blob/9469f09/releaseData/gbOpen/MDG/ADM2/geoBoundaries-MDG-ADM2_simplified.geojson https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/ Districts were grouped using maximum area overlap with the 2017 geoBoundaries ADM1 reference (OpenStreetMap / Wambacher, ODbL), then updated for the two laws below. The regional group assignment, rather than that ADM1 geometry, is retained. https://www.geoboundaries.org/api/current/gbOpen/MDG/ADM1/ https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright Older source timestamps are not a claim that the old 22-region arrangement is current. Vatovavy consists of Ifanadiana, Nosy Varika and Mananjary; Fitovinany consists of Manakara Atsimo, Ikongo and Vohipeno. Ambatosoa consists of Maroantsetra and Mananara Avaratra. Their boundaries follow district unions. Haute Matsiatra is also called Matsiatra Ambony. Codes prefixed mg-region- are internal learning IDs, not ISO subdivision codes. Outline detail reflects the older reference surveys, with the newer regional grouping applied. Law 2021-012 (24 June 2021), Vatovavy/Fitovinany split: https://www.assemblee-nationale.mg/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/LOI-n%C2%B02021-012-CTD.pdf Law 2023-012 (29 June 2023), Ambatosoa split and district membership: https://www.assemblee-nationale.mg/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/LOI-n%C2%B02023-012-24eme-r%C3%A9gion.pdf Regional list and name cross-check: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regions_of_Madagascar WATERS Natural Earth 1:10m rivers/lake centre-lines, lakes, marine geography and land. Public domain: https://www.naturalearthdata.com/about/terms-of-use/ https://github.com/nvkelso/natural-earth-vector/tree/master/geojson All available named reaches are retained without country, camera or rectangular clipping. Tsiribihina is joined with its Mania headstream; Mangoky with its Mananantanana headstream. Betsiboka, Onilahy and all named Maningory parts are retained. Lake Alaotra is a separate target, including its connection to the Maningory. The coarser source does not resolve every headwater stream, delta branch or tidal creek. Rivers reach their mapped headwaters and coastal mouths. The complete Indian Ocean, Mozambique Channel and Antongil Bay marine polygons have full Natural Earth land subtracted. These are conventional geographic learning areas, not maritime borders. Small waters take selection priority over larger overlapping marine areas in the shared renderer. Artificial marine outlines are hidden; the water map can zoom out independently of its opening view. The Indian Ocean extends towards Africa, Asia, Australia and the Southern Ocean, not just across the area immediately surrounding Madagascar. The offline source snapshot preserves 119 labelled reference districts and nine complete water features in scripts/madagascar-map-source.geojson. Curated city centres and location clues are in scripts/madagascar-locations.json. Rebuild with python3 scripts/build-madagascar-maps.py (Python 3, Shapely 2). No downloads are needed for the rebuild or the application build. City centres and large-landscape sight pins are approximate learning locations, not entrances or travel routes. READING AND QUESTION REVIEW https://www.britannica.com/place/Madagascar https://www.britannica.com/place/Madagascar/History https://www.britannica.com/topic/Malagasy-language https://www.instat.mg/ — 2018 census, about 25.7 million, explicitly dated https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/madagascar/overview https://ambatovy.com/ — nickel and cobalt https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/malagasy-kabary-the-malagasy-oratorical-art-01764 https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/woodcrafting-knowledge-of-the-zafimaniry-00080 https://whc.unesco.org/en/statesparties/mg/ https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/494/ — Tsingy de Bemaraha https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/950/ — Royal Hill of Ambohimanga https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1257/ — Rainforests of the Atsinanana https://www.worldwildlife.org/places/madagascar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malagasy_cuisine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanorona https://en.unesco.org/womeninafrica/gisele-rabesahala https://server.peaceau.org/en/article/communique-of-the-1306th-meeting-of-the-psc-emergency-session-held-on-15-october-2025-on-updated-briefing-on-the-situation-in-the-republic-of-madagascar The 2010 constitutional framework and 2009/2025 political events are dated; the guide does not present a past officeholder as an undated current fact. All 80 prompts were captured through the public read-only course API and matched to the existing lesson IDs. Corrections apply at read time; database rows, seed scripts and progress records are not replaced. Each four-choice question has a maximum/minimum answer length ratio at most 1.5. Correct answer positions are balanced 20/20/20/20. Choices are individually edited, never automatically padded. IMAGES Eleven distinct Commons photographs are stored locally in /images/country-guides/madagascar/. Each JPEG has a neighbouring .source.json with its original file page, author, licence and download URL. Attribution appears with each photo. Images were resized and converted to JPEG. The vanilla image illustrates Vanilla planifolia flowers and does not claim a Malagasy location. The Antsirabe street illustrates a regional urban setting, not a parliament.