The Avenue of the Baobabs is, without question, Madagascar's most celebrated postcard: a row of giant, ancient baobabs rising on both sides of a red dirt road in the Menabe region, near Morondava. At sunset, when the sun drops behind the colossal trunks and their silhouettes stand out against an orange and violet sky, the place reaches a beauty that on its own justifies the trip to the west of the country.
The trees belong to the species Adansonia grandidieri, the largest and most majestic of the Malagasy baobabs, endemic to this region. Some are over 30 metres tall, and the oldest are estimated to be between 800 and 1.000 years old: they were already mature trees before any kingdom existed on the island. They were once part of a dry forest that was cleared to make way for rice fields and pasture; the baobabs, sacred to the local people, were left standing, and today they are a national symbol.
This guide explains how to get there from Morondava, when to go for the best sunset, which other sites to add in the area —the 'Baobab Amoureux', the Kirindy reserve with its fossas and lemurs, and the route to the Tsingy de Bemaraha— and how to get around one of the most photogenic and also most remote regions of the country. A place where nature, culture and light come together in an unforgettable image.
The baobabs of the Avenue are the survivors of an ancient tropical dry forest that once covered western Madagascar. As the Sakalava and Betsileo people cleared the area over the centuries to grow rice and raise cattle, the huge Adansonia grandidieri baobabs —considered sacred and too hard to cut down— were left standing, lined up along what is now the road. Some are more than a thousand years old. In 2007 the site was declared a natural monument and temporary protected area, the first step towards conserving a landscape threatened by deforestation. Its full story —the biology of the baobab, its role in Malagasy culture and the fight to save it— is told on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The Sakalava west coast holds Madagascar's two most iconic images: the Avenue of the Baobabs silhouetted against the sunset and the maze of stone spires at Tsingy de Bemaraha.
Read the history of The West: baobabs and tsingy →They depart from Morondava, 15 km away. If you book from this link we earn a commission and you pay no more.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
The baobab is one of the most extraordinary trees on the planet, and Madagascar is its great kingdom. Of the nine baobab species in the world, one lives in mainland Africa, another in Australia, and the remaining six are endemic to Madagascar: they grow naturally nowhere else on Earth. The ones along the Avenue belong to the species Adansonia grandidieri, the tallest and most spectacular of them all, named after the French naturalist Alfred Grandidier, a great explorer of the island in the 19th century.
Their look is unmistakable: a huge cylindrical trunk, smooth and greyish or reddish, which can measure several metres across, topped by a relatively small, flat crown of branches that, leafless for much of the year, look like roots pointing at the sky. That's why many cultures call it 'the upside-down tree', as if a giant had pulled it up and replanted it head first. The Adansonia grandidieri on the Avenue often exceed 25 or 30 metres in height.
The baobab's secret is its ability to store water. Its spongy, fibrous trunk works like a gigantic tank that lets it survive the long dry seasons of western Madagascar. That same soft, water-filled wood is why it is very hard to cut down and useless as firewood, which —along with its sacred status— explains why so many baobabs survived while the forest around them disappeared.
The baobabs of the Avenue are far older than any human-built structure in Madagascar. The oldest specimens are estimated to be between 800 and 1,000 years old, meaning they were already imposing trees centuries before the first Europeans arrived, when the Malagasy kingdoms were only just beginning to form in the highlands. Dating a baobab is tricky, because it doesn't form clear growth rings like other trees, but carbon studies confirm its enormous longevity.
The key to understanding the landscape is that these baobabs didn't originally grow along a roadside, but in the middle of a dense tropical dry forest that once covered much of western Madagascar. That forest was made up of baobabs, tamarinds and many other species, and was home to lemurs, fossas and incredibly rich wildlife. The Avenue is, quite literally, the ghost of that forest: a row of survivors.
Over the centuries, people cut and burned the forest to clear land for rice fields, plantations and pasture for zebu cattle, in the farming practice known as 'tavy'. The ordinary trees fell, but the baobabs were left standing, because their wood is no good for firewood or building, because they were too hard to fell and, above all, because for the Malagasy they are sacred trees. So what we see today as a beautiful tree-lined avenue is really the mark of large-scale deforestation: the baobabs lining the road are the last witnesses to a forest that no longer exists.
For the peoples of western Madagascar, especially the Sakalava, the baobab isn't just any tree: it is a being charged with spiritual meaning. Many baobabs are considered sacred ('fady' is the Malagasy system of taboos) and are associated with the ancestors, with spirits and with fertility. It's common to find offerings, cloths, coins or the remains of ceremonies at the foot of a large baobab, and some are the site of rituals to ask for rain, health or children.
That sacred dimension has been key to their conservation. Cutting down a revered baobab is seen as a serious act, one that can bring misfortune, so the culture itself protected these giants while the rest of the forest fell. Many legends also grew up around the baobabs. The most famous in the area is that of the 'Baobabs Amoureux', two intertwined trees that, according to the story, embody two young lovers from different villages who weren't allowed to marry and asked the gods to let them stay together forever.
The baobab is also a useful tree in everyday life: its fruit, rich in vitamin C, is eaten and used in drinks; oil is extracted from its seeds; the bark and leaves have medicinal and craft uses. A symbol of resilience, longevity and Malagasy identity itself, the baobab now appears on logos, banknotes and in the national imagination, and the Avenue has become the country's number one tourist emblem.
For a long time, the row of baobabs near Morondava was simply one more stretch of the road linking the coast with the interior, travelled by zebu carts and villagers. It was photographers and travellers —and later nature magazines, advertising and social media— who turned that landscape into one of the most recognisable images of Africa and the world. The picture of the baobabs silhouetted against an orange sky at sunset went round the globe and turned Morondava into a destination.
With fame came threats too. Rising deforestation in the Menabe region, erosion, fires and tourism pressure put the trees' surroundings at risk. Some baobabs suffered from changes in the water level and the soil. Faced with that danger, in July 2007 the site was declared a 'natural monument' and temporary protected area by the Malagasy Ministry of Environment, one of the first of its kind in the country, with the aim of conserving the landscape and regulating its use.
Management was left largely in the hands of local community associations, which charge visitors a small fee, maintain the site and work to make sure tourism benefits local people. Projects have also been launched to plant new baobabs and curb deforestation in Menabe, one of the most threatened dry forest areas in the world. The challenge is huge: protecting the ancient trees, the remaining forest and the way of life of the communities that live alongside them, all at once.
The Avenue of the Baobabs can't be understood without its context: the Menabe region holds one of the last large blocks of deciduous dry forest in western Madagascar, a unique and seriously threatened ecosystem. Nearby forests such as Kirindy and Andranomena are home to species found nowhere else in the world: the fossa (Cryptoprocta ferox), the island's largest carnivore; Madame Berthe's mouse lemur, the smallest primate on the planet; Verreaux's sifaka; and many endemic birds, reptiles and amphibians.
This forest is disappearing fast due to logging for charcoal, the spread of crops —especially peanuts and maize— and fires. Menabe is estimated to have lost a huge share of its forest cover in just a few decades, which endangers not only the wildlife but also the regeneration of the baobabs themselves, which need the forest to reproduce. The baobabs of the Avenue are long-lived, but there are hardly any young trees growing, which raises the unsettling question of what will happen centuries from now.
Conservation organisations, Malagasy authorities and communities are working to create and expand protected areas in Menabe, on reforestation and on economic alternatives for local people that ease the pressure on the forest. Responsible tourism, which leaves income in local communities, is part of the solution. Visiting the Avenue of the Baobabs is therefore much more than taking the perfect photo: it's a glimpse of a fragile, irreplaceable natural heritage and, at the same time —if done respectfully— a contribution to its survival.
