Antsirabe is one of Madagascar's most pleasant cities: a calm, provincial 'city of water' with wide tree-lined avenues, Belle Époque colonial buildings, historic thermal baths and one of the country's most typical sights: thousands of colourful pousse-pousse carrying people and goods through its streets. At 1.500 metres, it has a surprisingly cool climate, which made it famous as a spa town back in colonial times.
It was founded by Norwegian missionaries in the late 19th century, drawn by its healthy climate and mineral waters, and that heritage, along with the French one, shows in its architecture, its churches and the grand spa hotel. Today it is a busy farming and industrial centre (home to the Star brewery and dairy and textile factories), surrounded by fields, crater lakes and villages of craftspeople who work semi-precious stones and zebu horn and make miniatures.
This guide takes a practical look at Antsirabe: what to see in the city and at its volcanic lakes, how to enjoy the thermal baths and a pousse-pousse ride, where to buy good crafts and stones, and how to fit it in as the first stop on the great RN7 journey. It's a relaxed and charming stop, perfect for getting used to the Highlands before heading further south.
Antsirabe began as a spa town in the late 19th century, when Norwegian missionaries settled here around 1872, drawn by its cool climate and mineral waters. It thrived under the French colonial administration, which built the railway, the grand thermal baths hotel and much of the Belle Époque architecture that still survives. Before that, the Vakinankaratra area was part of the Merina kingdom and was home to Betsileo and Merina communities who grew rice and raised cattle. From colonial spa village to the country's third-largest city, the full story of Antsirabe is told on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The political and spiritual heart of Madagascar: Tana rises over twelve sacred hills, capital of the old Merina kingdom, among terraced rice paddies, spa towns and the cradle of Malagasy craftsmanship.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Long before today's Antsirabe existed, the volcanic Vakinankaratra plateau, in the south-central Highlands, was settled and farmed by Malagasy communities of the Merina and Betsileo peoples. It was, and still is, a fertile, cool land dotted with crater lakes, mineral springs and old volcanic cones such as the Ibity massif and the Ankaratra, given over to terraced rice and zebu herding.
The region lay within the sphere of the Merina kingdom, which spread its rule from Antananarivo across the Highlands during the 19th century, bringing the Betsileo of the south under its control. Local people had long known the mineral and hot waters that welled up from the volcanic ground and believed they had healing powers. That feature gave the future city its name: Antsirabe means 'where there is much salt' in Malagasy, a reference to the minerals dissolved in those waters.
There was no large city, though, just scattered villages and hamlets in a landscape of rice paddies and hills. Antsirabe was founded as a town in the second half of the 19th century, and by unexpected people: Norwegian Protestant missionaries.
Antsirabe has an unusual origin for a Malagasy city: it was founded by Norwegian Lutheran missionaries. Around 1872, missionaries from the Norwegian Missionary Society, who had been in Madagascar since the middle of the century, picked this spot on the plateau for two reasons. Its climate was cool and healthy, very different from the tropical heat of the coasts, and it had mineral waters. Their idea was to set up a station where Europeans could recover from tropical diseases.
The healthy, mild highland climate and the hot springs soon turned Antsirabe into a budding place for rest and cures. The missionaries built churches, schools and the first permanent buildings, and laid the foundations of a Christian community that still shapes life in the city. That Scandinavian and Protestant heritage, later joined by a French one, gave Antsirabe a character of its own within Madagascar.
From that seed, and above all once French colonial rule arrived at the end of the 19th century, the small mission station began to grow into a real spa town, with hotels, avenues and services built for the health tourism of the day.
When the French colony of Madagascar was established in 1896, Antsirabe entered its golden age as a spa town. The colonial administration saw it as the ideal highland resort for officials and settlers and gave it the infrastructure to match: spa buildings went up, wide tree-lined avenues were laid out, and European-style villas and hotels were built. The symbol of that splendour was the grand Hôtel des Thermes, opened in the early 20th century and surrounded by gardens, where the colonial elite came to take the waters.
The arrival of the railway strengthened that role. The line linking Antananarivo and Antsirabe gave holidaymakers an easy way in and carried goods out. The town filled with churches, mission schools, shops and workshops, and took on the calm, orderly air of a Belle Époque spa town that it largely keeps today. The pousse-pousse also spread here: a human-pulled cart that would become a local emblem.
Alongside its spa role, Antsirabe also grew into a farming and industrial centre. The volcanic soils and mild climate suited cool-climate crops such as potatoes, cereals, fruit and barley for beer, and over time factories moved in and made it an economic hub of the Highlands.
After Madagascar's independence in 1960, Antsirabe kept growing until it became the country's third-largest city and the capital of the Vakinankaratra region. On top of its traditional role as a spa town, it built up a strong industrial and agro-industrial profile. The Star brewery set up here, producing the popular THB (Three Horses Beer) from local barley, along with textile, tobacco and dairy factories and other industries that made the city a key economic centre of the Highlands.
The Vakinankaratra region also became one of Madagascar's main food baskets, producing rice, potatoes, temperate vegetables, fruit (including strawberries and apples), milk and cheese. The mineral wealth underground, in the Sahatany and Ibity valleys with their tourmalines, garnets and quartz, fed a busy craft of cutting and polishing stones. Other local crafts include zebu-horn work, wild silk and the well-known miniatures made from recycled metal.
Today Antsirabe brings all those layers of history together: the Norwegian missionary heritage, the colonial spa past, its industry and farming today, and its place as a must-stop on the RN7 tourist route. Its tree-lined avenues, thousands of colourful pousse-pousses, hot springs and crater lakes make it one of the most characterful and pleasant cities in the Malagasy Highlands.
