Toliara (also known as Toliary, [tuliˈar]; formerly Tuléar) is a city in Madagascar.It is the capital of the Atsimo-Andrefana region, located 936 km south-west 'of Antananarivo.The current spelling(s) of the name was adopted in the 1970s, and reflects the orthography of the Malagasy language. Many geographic place names were similarly altered in this time from their previous French spellings following Malagasy independence in 1960.The city has a population of 156,710 in 2013.