About 50,000 Chinese nationals and overseas Chinese live in Madagascar: roughly 40,000 recent migrants and 10,000 members of the old community. Most live in the capital, Antananarivo, and the east-coast port of Toamasina (Tamatave). Families of the old community mostly come from Shunde and Nanhai in Guangdong and reached the east coast in the 19th century; newer migrants work mainly in trade and restaurants, alongside staff of Chinese companies.
Two overseas Chinese schools founded in 1938 are still teaching, and the community has chambers of commerce such as the Association of Chinese Enterprises and the Chinese Merchants General Chamber, as well as two Confucius Institutes.
Numbers and history
The 2025 edition of China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) country guide puts the number at about 50,000: some 40,000 recent migrants and 10,000 from the old community. Our data records 553 Chinese contract workers.
Xinhua reported in August 2025 that Chinese people were already landing in Toamasina to make a living in the mid-19th century, forming Madagascar’s first Chinese settlement. A September 2026 report by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs says the families of the old community around Toamasina and Fénérive mostly trace their roots to Shunde in Guangdong, with some from Nanhai. In the late 19th century they came by ship via Mauritius and Réunion, built roads and ports, opened plantations and traded, and they introduced lychee growing to Madagascar at the end of the 1800s. The route via Mauritius links this history to the Chinese community in Mauritius.
Today’s descendants are mostly third or fourth generation, born and raised locally, and most no longer speak Chinese, though some elders still know a little Cantonese. Many long played down their Chinese ancestry but are now more open about it, and some are well known in local business, politics and education. For sources and how the figures compare across countries, see our Chinese population in Africa data.
According to MOFCOM, newer migrants work mostly in trade, restaurants and other services. Others are managers and technicians at Chinese companies working on road projects, mining and free-zone textile factories.
Where Chinese people live and work
| Area | Details |
|---|---|
| Antananarivo | The main base for recent migrants, with many shops, wholesalers and restaurants; Chinese companies and the embassy are in the capital. Free-zone factories, including Chinese cashmere maker King Deer (Lu Wang), are in Tanjombato south of the capital and near Ivato airport. |
| Toamasina | The country’s largest port and home of the old community, with the Toamasina Overseas Chinese School and the University of Toamasina Confucius Institute. Madagascar is the largest lychee exporter in the Southern Hemisphere, and Toamasina grows over 70% of the crop; some Chinese-descended families run lychee farms. |
| Fénérive | A small town north of Toamasina on National Road 5, with many descendants of Shunde families and the Zhongshan School. |
| Project sites | China Road and Bridge, Sinohydro, China Railway 18th Bureau, China Harbour, Jiangxi International and others are rebuilding several national roads. |
For setting up a shop or factory, see registering a company in Madagascar.
Chinese schools and language teaching
Toamasina Overseas Chinese School
According to Xinhua, the school was founded in 1938 as the Xingwen School. During the war against Japan, some Chinese families moved to Toamasina to escape the fighting, and local overseas Chinese raised money for a school so their children could learn Chinese. It began with one class of 19 pupils and grew to cover kindergarten, primary and secondary levels. It now has over 400 students, fewer than 10% of them of Chinese descent, and Chinese has been taught without a break since it opened. The Guangdong Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, the University of Toamasina and its Confucius Institute send teachers and volunteers, and its students have won the Madagascar round of the “Chinese Bridge” secondary school Chinese competition several times.
Zhongshan School, Fénérive
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in 1938 many people from Shunde and Nanhai fled the war and settled here. The community raised funds for a private Chinese school, first housed in the Chinese Association hall (中华会馆). After independence it was renamed the Zhongshan School and in 1957 moved to its current site. It has more than 1,500 students and two Chinese teachers, and 81-year-old principal Chen Ruzhan has run it for decades. The embassy arranged a RMB 100,000 donation from the China Overseas Chinese Charity Foundation for a new building and awarded “China Ambassador Scholarships” to 50 students.
Confucius Institutes
The University of Antananarivo Confucius Institute is run with Jiangxi Normal University, and the University of Toamasina Confucius Institute with Ningbo University; both offer Chinese degree courses and training. The Antananarivo institute’s phone number is +261-20-2641463 (MOFCOM guide, 2025).
Associations and chambers of commerce
| Name | Details |
|---|---|
| Association of Chinese Enterprises in Madagascar | Founded July 2004, registered locally 2008, 40+ member companies; leading members include Hongyuan, CGC, Hua’an, Sinohydro, China Road and Bridge, China Railway 18th Bureau, China-Africa Mining and King Deer. Website www.aecmada.org |
| Madagascar Chinese Merchants General Chamber (华商总会) | Chamber for Chinese traders that can help with business problems. Website www.madhszh.com |
| Madagascar China Peaceful Reunification Promotion Association | Held a Mid-Autumn and National Day gathering in the capital in September 2026 attended by about 400 people; president Ren Yujie |
| China–Madagascar Security Mutual Aid Association | Mutual-aid numbers listed in embassy safety notices: +261-347414426, +261-383696666 |
| Chinese Association hall (Fénérive) | Early meeting hall of the old community, where the Zhongshan School began |
For what to do after a security incident, see our Madagascar safety guide.
Chinese media and WeChat groups
We could not verify any Chinese-language newspaper or website published in Madagascar, so none is listed. The most reliable sources for local safety and policy news are the Chinese embassy website and its WeChat official account; the embassy’s consular protection number, +261-330788188, can also be added on WeChat. We could not verify the names of any public Chinese WeChat groups either; ask the Chinese Merchants General Chamber or the Association of Chinese Enterprises. The embassy warns about scams offering “cheap currency exchange”.
Chinese malls and supermarkets
There are Chinese-run malls and wholesale shops in the capital, but we could not confirm their names from reliable sources, so none is listed for now. During the riots in the capital on 25 September 2025, a Chinese-run mall near the protest area was looted and burned, and the embassy told Chinese traders that day to close their shops.
Chinese Embassy in Madagascar
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Address | Nanisana, Antananarivo, Madagascar |
| Main line | +261-20-2240129 |
| Consular protection and assistance | +261-330788188 (same number on WeChat) |
| Website | mg.china-embassy.gov.cn |
| Economic and Commercial Office | Nanisana Ambatobe, Antananarivo; +261-20-2245228; mg.mofcom.gov.cn |
| Chinese Visa Application Service Center | Golden Business Center, Bâtiment B, Morarano Alarobia, Antananarivo; +261-20-7832116 |
China has only an embassy in Madagascar, with no consulate-general. For visas and residence, see Madagascar visas and work permits; for a country overview, see our Madagascar guide.
References
- Country Guide for Foreign Investment and Cooperation: Madagascar, 2025 edition (MOFCOM / Chinese Embassy Economic and Commercial Office, 2025)
- Reporter’s notes: the history of an overseas Chinese school in Madagascar (Xinhua, 2025)
- Embassy diplomats visit overseas Chinese in Toamasina and Fénérive (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, 2026)
- Ambassador Ji Ping attends Mid-Autumn and National Day gathering of the Madagascar China Peaceful Reunification Association (Chinese Embassy in Madagascar, 2026)
- Embassy reminds Chinese citizens in Madagascar to travel safely during the National Day and Mid-Autumn holidays (Chinese Embassy in Madagascar, 2026)
- Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Madagascar (Chinese Embassy in Madagascar, 2026)
- Chinese embassy: mass protests in Antananarivo, Chinese-run shops affected (The Paper, 2025)
- Madagascar protests: Chinese mall looted, 60 million yuan in losses (The Standard (Hong Kong), 2025)