Sambaina is the name of several towns and communes in Madagascar

Madagascar

The Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...

. Sambaina (Manjakandriana) belongs to the district

Districts of Madagascar

Districts are second-level administrative divisions of Madagascar below the regions. Districts are in their turn divided into communes; while some of the districts on urban areas such as the district of Toliara consists of only one commune, most of the districts are divided typically into...

 of Manjakandriana

Manjakandriana

Manjakandriana is a town in Analamanga Region, Madagascar....

, which is a part of Analamanga Region. The population of the commune was estimated to be approximately 7,000 in 2001 commune census

Census

A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...

.

Primary and junior level secondary education are available in town. The majority, 85%, of the population of the commune are farmers. The most important crops are cassava

Cassava

Cassava , also called yuca or manioc, a woody shrub of the Euphorbiaceae native to South America, is extensively cultivated as an annual crop in tropical and subtropical regions for its edible starchy tuberous root, a major source of carbohydrates...

 and potato

Potato

The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family . The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well as the edible tuber. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species...

es, while other important agricultural products are bean

Bean

Bean is a common name for large plant seeds of several genera of the family Fabaceae used for human food or animal feed....

s and rice

Rice

Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...

. Services provide employment for 15% of the population.

Sambaina (Antsirabe

Antsirabe

Antsirabe is the third largest city in Madagascar and has a population of approximately 183,000. It's the capital of the Vakinankaratra region...

) is situated to the north of Antsirabe with geographical coordinates of 19°37′0″S, 47°8′0″E. It is notable for its reserves of hydrocarbons in the form of bituminous schist. These are reported by the USGS categorised as oil shale

Oil shale

Oil shale, an organic-rich fine-grained sedimentary rock, contains significant amounts of kerogen from which liquid hydrocarbons called shale oil can be produced...

 and estimated at 32 Moilbbl of shale oil

Shale oil

Shale oil, known also as kerogen oil or oil-shale oil, is an unconventional oil produced from oil shale by pyrolysis, hydrogenation, or thermal dissolution. These processes convert the organic matter within the rock into synthetic oil and gas...

. They are currently under appraisal by Avana Petroleum, a company founded by Sam Malin

Sam Malin

Sam Malin is a Canadian businessman based in Madagascar. He has founded a number of companies including Madagascar Oil, Red Island Minerals, Avana Petroleum and Avana Uranium.- Educational Background :...

.