How big is Madagascar?
Madagascar encloses approximately 594,597 km² in this site’s Natural Earth boundary dataset. Madagascar is a single large island whose area is easy to underestimate beside familiar European countries. In this map dataset, its polygon is more than twice the area of the United Kingdom’s.
- Map-derived area
- 594,597 km²
- Area order
- 46 of 241 mapped places
- Representative latitude
- 18.6° S
- Mercator area scale at that point
- 1.1× its equatorial scale
What the map shows
Its representative anchor is in the southern tropics, where Mercator’s local area inflation is modest compared with northern Europe. Moving it over the United Kingdom makes the contrast in map scale visible.
The Mercator factor above is calculated at one representative point. It changes across the country and describes map enlargement, not a change in its real area. See Madagascar at its original position, then open the equal-area view.
Madagascar compared with United Kingdom
Madagascar is 2.48× the area of United Kingdom in this dataset. The bars below encode area as length, with the larger area spanning the full line.
Read the full comparison or place the outlines together on the map.
Places nearby in the area order
The entries immediately above and below Madagascar in the same mapped dataset are shown here. A different source or an official land-area ranking can put close places in another order.
What this area figure includes
A simplified coastline can change the measured area slightly. The visual and numerical comparisons on this site use the same Natural Earth source, so the figures are consistent with one another.
The area is calculated from the original Natural Earth 1:50m Admin 0 countries polygon. It is a consistent estimate for this map, not a certified land or total-area statistic. Read the area definitions before using the figure in research or teaching.