Countries
Key facts
- Capital
- Lilongwe
- Region
- Africa, Eastern Africa
- Population
- 22,216,120 (2025)
- Area
- 118,480 km²
- Currency
- Malawian kwacha (MWK)
- Languages
- Nyanja, Yao, Tumbuka, Malawi Sena
- Calling code
- +265
- Internet domain
- .mw
- ISO codes
- MW, MWI, 454
- Time zone
- UTC+2:00
- United Nations
- Member state
- Postal code pattern
- ###### (# = digit, @ = letter)
Land and position
Malawi covers about 118,480 square kilometres. By area it ranks 102nd among the 250 countries and territories on this site. It is a little smaller than North Korea and a little larger than Benin. It shares a land border with 3 neighbours: Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia. It is landlocked, which means it has no sea coast. Its centre lies at about 14° south, 34° east, in the southern hemisphere.
Neighbours
People
About 22.2 million people live in Malawi (World Bank, 2025). That makes it the 61st most populous of the 246 places on this site with a figure, with about 0.27 percent of the world's people. On average there are 188 people to each square kilometre. About 18 percent of people live in towns and cities (World Bank, 2025). A baby born there can expect to live about 68 years (World Bank, 2024). Languages listed for it: Nyanja, Yao, Tumbuka, Malawi Sena. A person from Malawi is called Malawian.
Money and economy
The currency is the Malawian kwacha (code MWK, symbol MK). The World Bank puts the size of its economy (GDP) at about US$ 14.9 billion (2025), which is about US$ 672 for each person (2025).
Time
Malawi uses one time zone, UTC+2:00 (Africa/Blantyre). Clocks stay the same all year: there is no daylight saving time.
Time now: loading
Offsets are for January 2026. See Time Zones for a converter.
Largest cities
| City | People |
|---|---|
| Lilongwe | 1,115,815 |
| Blantyre | 902,588 |
| Mzuzu | 249,564 |
| Zomba | 118,440 |
| Karonga | 69,486 |
| Kasungu | 66,152 |
City figures are from GeoNames and count the city itself, not the wider urban area. They can be some years old, so use them to see the order of size.
More in Eastern Africa
British Indian Ocean Territory, Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar. See the whole region.
Figures were collected on 11 November 2026 from the World Bank, GeoNames and the open countries data set. See About and data sources. Borders and names follow those sources and do not express any view on disputed territory.