Madagascar document photos online

Reach into a Malagasy wallet and you hold one of only two genuinely non-decimal currencies left on Earth. The ariary doesn't split into 100 cents like almost every modern money; instead it divides into five iraimbilanja, a word meaning "one iron weight" that recalls coins once measured against bars of metal. When Madagascar finally retired the old franc on 1 January 2005, it set the rate at one ariary to five francs, locking that ancient five-part logic into the documents of daily life. It is the kind of quiet anomaly that turns an ordinary passport stamp into a small monetary history lesson.

• Currency The Malagasy ariary is one of only two non-decimal currencies still circulating worldwide, divided into five iraimbilanja rather than 100 cents (the Mauritanian ouguiya is the only other).
• Money origins "Ariary" descends from the Spanish silver dollar that once circulated through Indian Ocean trade, while its subunit "iraimbilanja" literally means "one iron weight."
• Redenomination Madagascar only retired the Malagasy franc on 1 January 2005, converting at one ariary to five francs and making the ariary sole legal tender.
• Citizenship Until a landmark 2017 reform, Malagasy mothers could not pass their nationality to their children on equal terms with fathers, a gap that left thousands at risk of statelessness.
• Statelessness The UNHCR has estimated up to 100,000 people in Madagascar are stateless, including much of the Karana community of South Asian descent who lack recognised nationality documents.
• Passport power The Malagasy passport ranks around 78th on the Henley Passport Index, opening roughly 55 destinations visa-free or visa-on-arrival.
• Border openness Despite its modest outbound passport, Madagascar scores near the very top of Henley's Openness Index, welcoming almost every other nationality with visa-free or visa-on-arrival entry.
• Independence Madagascar regained full independence from France on 26 June 1960, ending more than six decades of colonial rule under the new Malagasy Republic.
• Oldest island Recognised as the world's oldest island, Madagascar split from Africa around 180 million years ago and from India about 90 million years ago, evolving a fauna over 90% of which exists nowhere else.