5.33 km: the farthest you can now get from a forest edge
In 1953 the deepest point in Madagascar’s forest lay 27.5 km from the nearest edge. Today the deepest point anywhere on the island is 5.33 km in, and it is no longer in the rainforest. For half a century it sat in the humid northeast, in forests like Makira. Slash-and-burn clearings, most of them no bigger than a field, broke that interior into pieces long before the forest itself was gone, because every clearing is a new edge. Since 2015 the deepest forest left is the Mikea, a dry forest on the southwest coast that is being cut back from one side. Drag through the years, hover anywhere for its history, and watch the star move.
Forest left: 16.0 million ha in 1953, 7.5 million in 2025. Share of it within 100 m of an edge: 5% then, 53% now.
deepest point from any forest edge
The deepest point, map by maprainforestdry forest
Forest that year
Depth is the straight-line distance to the nearest ground that is not forest: a field, a road, a river, the sea. The star is the deepest point, and its dashed ring is that distance, so nothing inside the ring has been cleared.