Madagascar's city of good education — a Betsileo hill town of 19th-century terraced rice paddies, Catholic churches, and the last working steam-era train in Africa
Fianarantsoa is Madagascar's second city (400,000 people) in the southern highlands, capital of the Haute-Matsiatra region and the cultural centre of the Betsileo people — the master irrigated-rice farmers of Madagascar. Its old quarter (Haute Ville) is a UNESCO-listed cluster of stone houses, brick churches, and staircases climbing a hilltop that the Merina Queen Ranavalona II chose for its strategic prominence in 1830. The city is the northern terminus of the FCE train — a narrow-gauge steam-era railway through tropical forest to Manakara on the Indian Ocean coast, one of the most scenic ra…
Fianarantsoa was established as an administrative centre by Queen Ranavalona I of the Merina Kingdom in 1830; its name in Malagasy means 'where good is learned' — reflecting its role as a seat of royal administration and later Catholic and Protestant mission schools under 19th-century missionaries. The London Missionary Society and the Norwegian Mission both built schools and churches here that made Fianarantsoa one of the most literate regions in Madagascar. The FCE railway (opened 1936) was built to carry vanilla, cloves, and coffee from the eastern highlands to the coast; it continues to o…