East African Islands Travel Guide — Things to Do, Food & Hotels
Islands in the Indian Ocean off the eastern coast of Africa. While Madagascar is dominant, there are several smaller islands.
About East African Islands
The "eighth continent" formed at a time when there were only four: from 550 to 180 million years ago most of the world's landmasses were smushed together into the supercontinent called Gondwana, leaving only three small outliers. Then the forces of plate tectonics fragmented it into the forerunners of the continents we recognise today. When the Indian Ocean opened up, Madagascar was a part of India not Africa; then it peeled away as a separate tectonic plate. This separation was complete by about 90 million years ago, so Madagascar and the other East African islands have been out of contact with any mainland for all that time, and out of contact with Africa for twice as long. Their evolution has therefore been utterly different from that of in-shore islands such as Zanzibar. At some point
East African Islands Travel Guide Sections
Our comprehensive guide covers 12 sections including: