Fourth greatest island of the world with its 592 000 km2 , situated in the hemisphere south , in the same latitudes as Bali and the New Caledonia , two time zones East of Greenwich , crossed to the South by the Tropic of the Capricorn , anchored to 400 km of the African east coast , Madagascar give an impression of a giant beside its neighbors of the Indian Ocean .

It spreads over 1600 km length , has 5000 km of coast with 3000 km of beaches and an uneven relief in its totality , with three peaks : 2876 m to the North , 2643 m to the Center , 2658 m to the South , with a marked dissymmetry between the East coast exposed to the swell of the ocean and the more serene West Coast .

A backbone made of high summits separates it in two dissymetric parts : The East , country of cliffs, overhanging a littoral strip where the rain forest is omnipresent , and the West slope including two great sedimentary basins : Majunga and Morondava , and owing vast chalky plateau as Bemaraha or sandy as the Isalo .. The oriental slope limited by a great escarpment is 25 to 100 km wide , it concerns narrow plains and a remarkable succession of lagoons.

On both sides of the division line , the High plateaux is an entanglement of relief often marked by the erosion at the two extremities

The Extreme South presents as a softly undulated peneplain , while the North , the highest region , is the most complex with its volcanic, karstic forms and its crystalline mountains .