Belo sur Mer is a rural municipality in

Madagascar Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...

. It belongs to the

district A district is a type of administrative division that in some countries is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or county, counties, several municipality, municip ...

Morondava Morondava (, from "long coast") is a city located in Menabe Region, of which it is the capital, in Madagascar. It is located in the delta of the Morondava River at . Its population as of the 2018 census, was 53,510. Population The predominant ...

, which is a part of

Menabe Region Menabe is a region in western Madagascar, with its capital at Morondava. It covers an area of , and its population was 700,577 in 2018. The population mostly belongs to the Sakalava ethnic group. The region is named after the 18th-century Sakalava ...

. The population of the commune was estimated to be approximately 8,000 in 2001 commune

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

. Primary and junior level secondary education are available in town. It is also a site of industrial-scale mining. The majority 60% of the population of the commune are farmers. The most important crop is

maize Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago from wild teosinte. Native American ...

, while other important products are

sweet potato The sweet potato or sweetpotato (''Ipomoea batatas'') is a dicotyledonous plant in the morning glory family, Convolvulaceae. Its sizeable, starchy, sweet-tasting tuberous roots are used as a root vegetable, which is a staple food in parts of ...

es and

lima bean A lima bean (''Phaseolus lunatus''), also commonly known as butter bean, sieva bean, double bean or Madagascar bean, is a legume grown for its edible seeds or beans. Origin and uses ''Phaseolus lunatus'' is found in Meso- and South America. Tw ...

s. Industry provides employment for 10% of the population. Additionally fishing employs 30% of the population.

Economy

Belo sur mer is well known for its boatbuilders of traditional wooden

dhow Dhow (; ) is the generic name of a number of traditional sailing vessels with one or more masts with settee or sometimes lateen sails, used in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean region. Typically sporting long thin hulls, dhows are trading vessels ...

s. There are also

Salt evaporation pond A salt evaporation pond is a shallow artificial salt pan designed to extract salts from sea water or other brines. The salt pans are shallow and expansive, allowing sunlight to penetrate and reach the seawater. Natural salt pans are formed thr ...

s in the commune.priori - Belo sur Mer
(in French)

National Parks

Belo sur Mer is the entry point to the

Kirindy Mitea National Park The Kirindy Mitea National Park is a national park on the coast of the Mozambique Channel, in south-west Madagascar. The park contains many endemic animals and plants and claims to have the greatest density of primates in the world. Geography Th ...

Gallery

Image:Eglise à Belo sur Mer - Madagascar.JPG, Beach & church Image:Madagascar mangroves.JPG, Mangroves Image:Mairie de Belo sur Mer - Madagascar.jpg, Town hall Image:Piroge.jpg, Outrigger boat

References

{{coord, 20, 44, S, 44, 0, E, display=title Populated places in Menabe