Despite the presumed importance of a strong state in the development process, there has been very little empirical work assessing the state’s ability to exercise power in isolated areas and understanding the means through which the state exerts that power. This paper begins to fill this gap in the literature by examining the relationship between state power and isolation using several proxies for state power with a rich panel data set from Madagascar. We find strong evidence that the extent of state power is severely limited in isolated areas.