Family research · Phase 12 of the world atlas

Flags of Madagascar

Madagascar's own story starts differently from anywhere else in this hub: its first settlers arrived by sea from the Indonesian archipelago, not from mainland Africa, making the Malagasy people and language genuinely Austronesian in origin even as later Bantu-African and Arab Indian Ocean influence blended in. Out of that mix, the Merina Kingdom, based in the central highlands, unified most of the island by the 1820s — a real, substantial precolonial state with its own royal line, abolished only when France invaded in the 1890s.

Madagascar's flag, adopted just ahead of full independence in 1960, keeps the old Merina Kingdom's own red and white in a field alongside a newer green.

Scope of this page: the island of Madagascar, c. 500–present, four political entities. Part of a larger atlas — see the map and linked pages at the bottom.

One island, four eras

Madagascar's own real coastline, traced whole — an island with no land borders at all. Press play, or drag the slider, to watch who held it, era to era.

This is another one-piece page. Even the precolonial era shown here as "fragmented" was never a fixed set of separately-governed zones with lasting borders of their own — the island's numerous peoples and kingdoms shifted too fluidly for an honest internal partition. What changes is only who, if anyone, held the whole island at once.

c. 500

Early settlement & pre-unification kingdoms

Real traced coastline, no internal partition — see the rule box above for why.

white hoist band, red over green horizontal bands

1958 – present

Malagasy Republic / Republic of Madagascar

Republic, independentPhilibert TsirananaSecular (no state religion)

Migration & conquest:Emigration: to France (1960–)

Who & why: Madagascar becomes an autonomous republic within the French Community in 1958, adopting its own flag ahead of full sovereignty, and gains full independence as the Malagasy Republic on 26 June 1960 under President Philibert Tsiranana. The country has continued as a republic since, through several changes of constitution and government (including a Marxist-leaning period in the 1970s-80s and a return to multiparty democracy from the 1990s), under the same national flag throughout.

What it represents: white and red are said to echo the old Merina Kingdom's own royal colors, a deliberate link to Madagascar's precolonial statehood, while green represents the coastal peoples and the hope of the newly independent nation — adopted by the pre-independence constituent assembly in October 1958.

Paint guide

Proportions2:3.

LayoutVertical white band at the hoist; red (top) and green (bottom) horizontal bands filling the remainder.

White#F4EFE1

Red#A4302A

Green#1E7A4A

French tricolor with a colonial badge (schematic)

1896 – 1958

French Madagascar

Colonial ruleJoseph GallieniSecular (French colonial policy)

Migration & conquest:Conquered by: FranceImmigration: Gujarati Indian (Karana) traders

Ruling house:House of AndrianaMaroseraña dynasty

Who & why: France invades Madagascar in 1895, defeating Merina forces at the capital, Antananarivo, and formally annexes the kingdom as a colony in 1896-97, exiling the last monarch, Queen Ranavalona III, to Algeria. French rule governs the whole island directly for the first time in its history, suppressing periodic revolts (including a serious 1947-48 uprising, met with harsh reprisals) before granting growing autonomy in the 1950s, culminating in self-governing republic status within the French Community from 1958.

What it represents: the French tricolor, flown as the colonial power's own national flag, typically alongside a colonial governorate badge for official use; no distinct Malagasy territorial flag was adopted before the 1958 autonomous-republic flag.

Paint guide

Proportions2:3, standard French tricolor.

LayoutBlue-white-red vertical bands with a colonial badge, simplified here.

Blue#1A3A6B

White#F4EFE1

Red#CF142B

white field bordered in red, red royal disc with a white star (reconstructed Merina emblem)

c. 1810 – 1896

Kingdom of Madagascar (Merina Kingdom, island-wide)

Kingdom / Sultanate, independentRadama ITraditional Malagasy religion (fombandrazana)

Migration & conquest:Emigration: enslaved Malagasy to Mauritius & Réunion

Ruling house:House of AndrianaMaroseraña dynasty

Who & why: King Radama I, succeeding his father Andrianampoinimerina, completes the Merina Kingdom's conquest and unification of most of Madagascar by the 1820s, establishing what is generally called the Kingdom of Madagascar, with its capital at Antananarivo. A line of queens and kings rules through the 19th century, including the long and often isolationist reign of Queen Ranavalona I (1828-1861) and, at the century's end, Queen Ranavalona III, deposed when France invades in 1895 and annexes the kingdom outright in 1896-97.

What it represents: red and white are the historically attested Merina royal colors, carried into a stylized royal emblem here as an informed reconstruction; no single fixed national flag in the modern sense is confidently documented for the kingdom across its whole span, though red-and-white royal banners are consistently associated with it.

Paint guide

ProportionsNo fixed civil ratio recorded; shown as a reconstructed royal emblem.

LayoutWhite field, red border, red royal disc with a white star, simplified here.

White#F4EFE1

Red#A4302A

placeholder maroon field — early Austronesian-descended settlement and pre-Merina kingdoms, no flag survives

c. 500 – c. 1810

Early Malagasy settlement & pre-unification kingdoms

Fragmented / pre-stateNo single ruler documentedTraditional ancestral belief (varied, no state religion)

Migration & conquest:Immigration: Austronesian settlers from IndonesiaImmigration: Bantu-African & Arab/Indian Ocean settlers

Ruling house:House of AndrianaMaroseraña dynasty

Who & why: Madagascar's first settlers arrive by outrigger canoe from the Indonesian archipelago roughly 1,500-2,000 years ago, an unusually distant seaborne migration that makes the Malagasy people and language genuinely Austronesian in origin, unlike any other population on the African continent; later waves of Bantu-African and Arab/Indian Ocean trading contact blend into this base over the following centuries. Numerous distinct peoples and kingdoms — Merina, Betsimisaraka, Sakalava, and others — develop across the island with no single central authority until the Merina Kingdom's rise from the late 18th century.

What it represents: no securely documented unified flag survives from this era for any Malagasy people or kingdom. Shown here honestly blank rather than invented.

Paint guide

ProportionsN/A — no attested flag.

Reading the tags

Fragmented / pre-state — no single ruling authority

Kingdom / Sultanate, independent — sovereign under its own crown

Colonial rule — colony under a European power

Republic, independent — modern sovereign republic

Leader — the named ruler most associated with the era's start

State religion — the official/established faith, not the population's

Find the records

Family history research for Madagascar lives in a different project, Record Atlas, which maps which archive actually holds the paper for a given place and era.

Search Record Atlas for Madagascar →

More of the atlas

This page is one lineage in a larger set. See the region-wide hub and the other countries here:

Flags Atlas indexSearch every country and hub East Africa hubEleven countries, one region