The mango is a juicy stone fruit (drupe) belonging to the genus Mangifera, consisting of numerous tropical fruiting trees, cultivated mostly for edible fruit. The majority of these species are found in nature as wild mangoes. They all belong to theflowering plant family Anacardiaceae. The mango is native to South Asia,[1][2] from where it has been distributed worldwide to become one of the most cultivated fruits in the tropics. The center of diversity of the Mangifera genus is in India.[1]

While other Mangifera species (e.g. horse mango, Mangifera foetida) are also grown on a more localized basis, Mangifera indica—the "common mango" or "Indian mango"—is the only mango tree commonly cultivated in many tropical andsubtropical regions.

It is the national fruit of India, Pakistan, and the Philippines, and the national tree of Bangladesh

The English word "mango" (plural "mangoes" or "mangos") originated from theMalayalam word māṅṅa via Portuguese (also manga) during spice trade with Keralain 1498.[7]

[8] The word's first recorded attestation in a European language was a text by Ludovico di Varthema in Italian in 1510, as manga; the first recorded occurrences in languages such as French and postclassical Latin appear to be translations from this Italian text. The origin of the "-o" ending in English is unclear.[9] Mango is also mentioned by Hendrik van Rheede, the Dutch commander of Malabar (Northern Kerala) in his book Hortus Malabaricus, a compendium of the plants of economic and medical value in the Malabar, published in 1678.[10] When mangoes were first imported to the American colonies in the 17th century, they had to be pickledbecause of lack of refrigeration. Other fruits were also pickled and came to be called "mangoes", especially bell peppers, and by the 18th century, the word "mango" became a verb meaning "to pickle"