Madagascar P-104a 20,000 Ariary ND (2017) UNC—Ambatovy Mine—Rice, Vanilla & Lychees

The apex denomination of Madagascar's "Madagascar and its Riches" Series 2, the 20,000 Ariary pairs the island's industrial ambition — a world-class nickel mine carved into the highland rainforest — with the agricultural soul that feeds and defines Madagascar: rice, vanilla, lychees, and pepper, framed by the terraced paddies that have shaped the landscape for a thousand years.

Front

• Colors:
  • Background: multicolor
  • Dominant: purple and violet tones
• Ambatovy nickel mine (Sherritt International) — one of the largest laterite nickel operations in the world
• Color-shifting stylized Green Sea Turtle (Chelonia mydas) in lower right (security feature)
• Denomination: ROA ALINA ARIVO ARIARY (20,000 Ariary in Malagasy)
• Issuer text: BANKY FOIBEN'I MADAGASIKARA
• Signatures: Gov. Alain Hervé Rasolofondraibe (AHR)

Back

• Colors:
  • Background: multicolor
  • Dominant: green and gold tones
• Rice, vanilla, lychees, pepper — Madagascar's defining agricultural exports
• Rice field — terraced paddy landscape of the central highlands

Other Characteristics

• Varieties:
  • P-104a, ND(2017), Gov. AHR, Prefix A–E — this note
  • P-104s, ND(2017) — Specimen
  • TBB B339b, ND(2025), Gov. AHA, Prefix F–...
• Catalog numbers: P-104a; TBB B339a; Numista N#203018
• Watermark: Zebu cattle head and electrotype 10000
• Composition: Paper
• Size: 149 × 81 mm
• Issuing entity: Central Bank of Madagascar (Banky Foiben'i Madagasikara)
• Printer: Giesecke+Devrient, Leipzig, Germany
• Demonetized: No — demonetization not applicable
• Signatures: Gov. Alain Hervé Rasolofondraibe (AHR)
• Currency: Ariary (MGA), in use since 2003
• Official language(s): Malagasy, French

About Madagascar

• Origin of name: Named after the island of Madagascar; the name was popularized in Europe by Marco Polo, likely a corruption of "Mogadishu" — a geographic error that stuck
• Capital: Antananarivo (city pop. ~1.4 million; metro ~3.7 million)
  • Origin of name: Malagasy for "City of the Thousand" — referring to the thousand soldiers who once guarded it
• Population: ~30 million (UN 2024) — similar to Peru or Texas
• Area: 587,041 km² (226,658 mi²) — similar to France or Texas
• GDP per capita (PPP): ~$1,800 USD (one of the lowest in the world)
• Main exports: vanilla, cloves, nickel, cobalt, clothing, seafood
• Borders: None — island nation in the Indian Ocean, separated from mainland Africa by the Mozambique Channel
• Official/spoken languages: Malagasy (Austronesian), French
• Ethnicities: Merina, Betsimisaraka, Betsileo, and 15+ other Malagasy groups; small communities of Comorians, Indians, Chinese, and French
• Memberships: African Union (founding member, 1963); United Nations (1960); Organisation internationale de la Francophonie; COMESA; Indian Ocean Commission (hosts secretariat in Mauritius)
• Sovereignty: See narrative below

Madagascar Unfiltered

Madagascar split from the Indian subcontinent roughly 88 million years ago — making it one of the oldest island landmasses on Earth. About 90% of its wildlife exists nowhere else on the planet.

The island was uninhabited until roughly 350–550 AD, when Austronesian sailors arrived from Borneo — making Malagasy people more closely related to Indonesians than to mainland Africans.

Madagascar produces more than 80% of the world's vanilla. A single crop failure can send global vanilla prices higher than silver per gram.

Over 90% of Madagascar's original forests have been destroyed. The country loses an estimated 100,000–200,000 hectares of forest per year to slash-and-burn agriculture.

Despite extraordinary biodiversity, Madagascar ranks among the world's poorest nations. More than 75% of the population lives below the international poverty line of $2.15/day.

The Zafimaniry people of the central highlands are the only ethnic group in the world whose entire built environment — houses, furniture, tools — is made from carved wood. Their craft is a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Madagascar has experienced four coups or unconstitutional transfers of power since independence in 1960. The most recent, in 2009, triggered international sanctions and a prolonged political crisis.

The Island That Forgot It Was African

Madagascar's first settlers didn't come from Africa — they came from Borneo, more than 6,000 kilometers across open ocean, in outrigger canoes. Bantu-speaking Africans arrived later, and Arab traders after them. The result is a culture that is genuinely unlike anything else on Earth: Austronesian language, African cattle culture, Arab lunar calendar, French colonial overlay — all layered onto an island that had been evolving in isolation for 88 million years.

The lemurs are the most visible symbol of that isolation. There are over 100 species, found nowhere else. When humans arrived, they found giant lemurs the size of gorillas. Within a few centuries, they were gone.

The Mine on This Note Cost the Forest

The Ambatovy mine, depicted on the obverse, is one of the largest nickel and cobalt laterite operations on Earth. It sits in the rainforest east of Antananarivo, operated by Sherritt International of Canada. Construction began in 2007 and required clearing thousands of hectares of primary rainforest — habitat for species found nowhere else on the planet.

The mine was built to run for 27 years. It produces nickel used in stainless steel and electric vehicle batteries. Madagascar receives royalties. The forest does not grow back.

The project is a near-perfect encapsulation of Madagascar's dilemma: extraordinary mineral wealth sitting beneath irreplaceable biodiversity, in one of the world's poorest countries, with a government that has rarely had the leverage to negotiate on equal terms with multinational capital.

The Other Side: What Madagascar Actually Eats and Sells

The reverse tells a different story. Rice is not just a crop in Madagascar — it is identity. The Malagasy word for rice, vary, is also the word for meal. Madagascar has one of the highest per-capita rice consumption rates in the world, yet still imports rice in bad harvest years.

Vanilla is Madagascar's most famous export — the island produces over 80% of the world's natural vanilla, almost all of it from the Sava region in the northeast. The crop is hand-pollinated, labor-intensive, and extraordinarily vulnerable to cyclones. A single storm can erase a year's global vanilla supply.

Lychees and pepper round out the reverse's agricultural tableau — both significant export crops, both grown in the humid northeast, both dependent on the same fragile ecosystem that the mine on the front is consuming.

Own This Document of Madagascar, Before and After

This 20,000 Ariary note — the highest denomination Madagascar has ever issued — was released on 17 July 2017, worth roughly $4.80 at the time. It holds on one face the infrastructure of extraction, and on the other the crops and paddies that have sustained Malagasy life for centuries. The tension between those two faces is not decorative. It is the country.

Printed by Giesecke+Devrient in Leipzig, signed by Governor Rasolofondraibe, prefix A–E. The 2025 series (prefix F onward, signed by Governor Andrianarivelo) is already entering circulation. The P-104a window is closing.