Main article: History of Madagascar

Antananarivo (1)
Analamanga
Bongolava
Itasy
Vakinankaratra
Antsiranana (2)
Diana
Sava Fianarantsoa (3)
Amoron'i Mania
Atsimo-Atsinanana
Haute-Matsiatra
Ihorombe
Vatovavy-Fitovinany

Mahajanga (4)
Betsiboka
Boeny
Melaky

Sofia Toamasina (5)
Alaotra Mangoro
Analanjirofo
Atsinanana

Toliara (6)
Androy
Anosy
Atsimo-Andrefana
Menabe

Main article: History of Madagascar

As part of East Gondwana, the territory of Madagascar split from Africa approximately 160 million years ago; the island of Madagascar was created when it separated from the Indian subcontinent 80 to 100 million years ago.[5] Most archaeologists estimate that the human settlement of Madagascar happened between 200 and 500 A.D.,[6] when seafarers from southeast Asia (probably from Borneo or the southern Celebes) arrived in outrigger sailing canoes.[7] Bantu settlers probably crossed the Mozambique Channel to Madagascar at about the same time or shortly afterwards. However, Malagasy tradition and ethnographic evidence suggests that they may have been preceded by the Mikea hunter gatherers.[8] The Anteimoro who established a kingdom in Southern Madagascar in the Middle Ages trace their origin to migrants from Somalia.[9]

The written history of Madagascar begins in the 7th century,[10] when Muslims established trading posts along the northwest coast. During the Middle Ages, the island's kings began to extend their power through trade with their Indian Ocean neighbours, notably Arab, Persian and Somali traders who connected Madagascar with East Africa, the Middle East and India.[11]

Large chiefdoms began to dominate considerable areas of the island. Among these were the Sakalava chiefdoms of the Menabe, centred in what is now the town of Morondava, and of Boina, centred in what is now the provincial capital of Mahajanga (Majunga). The influence of the Sakalava extended across what are now the provinces of Antsiranana, Mahajanga and Toliara. Madagascar served as an important transoceanic trading port for the east African coast that gave Africa a trade route to the Silk Road, and served simultaneously as a port for incoming ships.

The wealth created in Madagascar through trade created a state system ruled by powerful regional monarchs known as the Maroserana. These monarchs adopted the cultural traditions of subjects in their territories and expanded their kingdoms. They took on divine status, and new nobility and artisan classes were created.[12] Madagascar functioned in the East African Middle Ages as a contact port for the other Swahili seaport city-states such as Sofala, Kilwa, Mombasa and Zanzibar.

European contact began in the year 1500, when the Portuguese sea captain Diogo Dias sighted the island after his ship separated from a fleet going to India.[13] The Portuguese continued trading with the islanders and named the island São Lourenço (St. Lawrence). In 1666, François Caron, the Director General of the newly formed French East India Company, sailed to Madagascar.[14] The Company failed to establish a colony on Madagascar but established ports on the nearby islands of Bourbon and Ile-de-France (today's Réunion and Mauritius). In the late 17th century, the French established trading posts along the east coast.

The most famous pirate utopia is that of Captain Misson and his pirate crew, who allegedly founded the free colony of Libertatia in northern Madagascar in the late 17th century. From about 1774 to 1824, Madagascar was a favourite haunt for pirates, including Americans, one of whom brought Malagasy rice to South Carolina. Many European sailors were shipwrecked on the coasts of the island, among them Robert Drury, whose journal is one of the few written depictions of life in southern Madagascar during the 18th century.[15] Sailors sometimes called Madagascar "Island of the Moon".[16]