Current Time in Mahajanga, Madagascar

Mahajanga, long known to French speakers as Majunga, stands on the north-western coast of Madagascar at the mouth of the Betsiboka River, where the huge, rust-red tidal inlet of Bombetoka Bay opens into the Mozambique Channel. It is the capital of the Boeny region and the country's second port, with a population of around a quarter of a million. Hot, low-lying and dry for much of the year, it has a rhythm quite unlike that of the cool highland capital.

The city grew from the sea trade. Swahili, Arab and Indian merchants were established along this coast for centuries, and in the eighteenth century the Sakalava kingdom of Boina made the port its principal outlet, exporting cattle, hides and slaves and importing cloth and firearms. The Merina conquest of the 1820s, then French colonisation, added further layers. Today Mahajanga remains the most visibly cosmopolitan city in Madagascar, with substantial Comorian, Indian and Muslim communities alongside Sakalava and highland Malagasy residents, and mosques, temples and churches standing close together.

The seafront promenade, known as the Corniche, is the centre of social life. In the late afternoon families, students and vendors gather along it to eat grilled meat, samosas and coconut ices and to watch the sun drop into the channel. At its northern end stands the city's emblem, an enormous baobab tree several centuries old, its swollen trunk measuring many metres around, planted at what is now a busy road junction.

Beaches, some sandy and some backed by mangrove, line the coast towards Amborovy, and just inland lies the Cirque Rouge, a natural amphitheatre of eroded sandstone in bands of red, ochre and white that glow spectacularly at sunset. Further out are the limestone caves of Anjohibe, with lakes and stalactites, and, about a hundred kilometres to the south-east, the Ankarafantsika National Park, one of the finest surviving areas of dry deciduous forest in the world, home to Coquerel's sifaka, mongoose lemurs, chameleons and many endemic birds around Lake Ravelobe.

The port handles cement, sugar, cashew nuts, timber and fish, and the fishing and shrimp industries are important employers, as is the growing tourist trade. The economy is closely tied to the agricultural hinterland along the Betsiboka, whose heavy silt load stains the sea red for kilometres offshore, a phenomenon visible from space and a reminder of the island's deforestation problem.

The national road to Antananarivo, about five hundred and seventy kilometres away, is one of the better highways in Madagascar, and Amborovy airport links the city to the capital and to Nosy Be. The University of Mahajanga is known especially for its faculties of medicine and dentistry, drawing students from across the island and beyond.

Warm, relaxed and full of maritime character, Mahajanga is one of Madagascar's most appealing coastal cities.