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Along the east coast of the island country of Madagascar sits the Canal des Pangalanes, a canal that parallels the Indian Ocean coastline. Stretching between the towns of Toamasina and Farafagana, the canal connects lagoons and rivers to provide an alternate transportation route to move north and south along the coast.
For other maps on canals see posts about the Suez Canal, Baltic Waterways and the Qattara Depression!
See the interactive Google Map at the bottom of the post!
Three key facts about this map
The canal was built in the late 1800s by French colonists
Madagascar was a French colony throughout the 1800s and into the 1900s, and as such embarked on various infrastructure projects throughout the country. The Canal des Pangalanes was designed and constructed by the French occupying colonizers by connecting previously unlinked lagoons and waterways in order to bypass the rough Indian ocean waters and allow for more stable trading routes.
Canal des Pangalanes is longer than both the Panama and Suez canals
Traversing from Toamasina and Farafagana, the canal stretches about 400 miles – four times longer than the Suez Canal and eight times longer than the Panama Canal. Canal des Pangalanes is vitally important to the local population who use the waterway as a means of travel and trade between different parts of the country.
Morocco has shown interest in helping to restore Canal des Pangalanes
In 2016, Morocco undertook various diplomatic efforts to assert their influence in the southern part of Africa, including embarking on various bilateral relationships with countries such as Madagascar. The leaders of the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding to restore and improve the canal leveraging a Moroccan engineering company called Marshica Med Ltd. It is unclear if progress towards this canal restoration project has followed through to this date.
Additional links and sources
- Guardian article about this history of the canal (link, published in 2021)
- Article about Morocco’s interest to help restore the canal (link, published in 2016)
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