Madagascar is both a country and an island and lies off the coast of Mozambique in the Indian Ocean. Madagascar is 14 times larger than Switzerland.

Madagascar's average annual temperature is 25 °C, although temperatures are higher on the coasts and can drop below freezing in the interior highlands. Summer and winter correspond to tropical rainy and dry seasons.

The island was probably almost completely forested before the arrival of the first settlers. Only four percent of the original rainforests remain. The largest contiguous areas of rainforest that still exist are on the Masoala Peninsula. The country is rich in minerals, oil and other raw materials, the extraction of which further endangers the rainforest.

The island has long been separated from the mainland, so much of the flora and fauna is endemic. For example, around 80 per cent of the flowering plants as well as mammals and 95 per cent of the reptiles are found only on Madagascar. These include the world's smallest chameleon, the typical lemurs, geckos and a variety of birds. The largest predatory mammal in Madagascar is the fossa, with the weight of a domestic cat. There are over 120 species of semi-monkeys such as the typical lemurs. There are no endemic ungulates; cattle and warthogs, for example, arrived with humans from continental Africa.

In Madagascar, GDP per capita was around 525 dollars in 2019. Seen the long term perspective, this makes the country one of the ten least developed countries in the world. Madagascar has a population of 28 million. Rice as a staple food is grown with little support, so that today about 50 per cent of the rice consumed has to be imported. The infrastructure for transporting food is only maintained in a rudimentary manner between the provincial towns, important port and the capital. Thus, transporting food from the fields to the city is difficult. Like the infrastructure, Madagascar's education system is in a desolate state. In Malagasy society, there is a very small, rich elite and very poor people living in a traditional way.

Today, Madagascar supplies about 80 per cent of the world's vanilla. In addition, many other products such as cloves, raffia fibres, perfume oils or sapphires are exported. Tourism is an important source of income for urgently needed foreign currency. Due to the dilapidated infrastructure, however, Madagascar can only attract and handle small numbers of tourists.