21,279,597 (2023 est.)
noun: Malawian(s)
adjective: Malawian
Chewa 34.3%, Lomwe 18.8%, Yao 13.2%, Ngoni 10.4%, Tumbuka 9.2%, Sena 3.8%, Mang'anja 3.2%, Tonga 1.8%, Nyanja 1.8%, Nkhonde 1%, other 2.2%, foreign 0.3% (2018 est.)
English (official), Chewa (dominant), Lambya, Lomwe, Ngoni, Nkhonde, Nyakyusa, Nyanja, Sena, Tonga, Tumbuka, Yao
note: Chewa and Nyanja are mutually intelligible dialects; Nkhonde and Nyakyusa are mutually intelligible dialects
Protestant 33.5% (includes Church of Central Africa Presbyterian 14.2%, Seventh Day Adventist/Baptist 9.4%, Pentecostal 7.6%, Anglican 2.3%), Roman Catholic 17.2%, other Christian 26.6%, Muslim 13.8%, traditionalist 1.1%, other 5.6%, none 2.1% (2018 est.)
Malawi has made great improvements in maternal and child health, but has made less progress in reducing its high fertility rate. In both rural and urban areas, very high proportions of mothers are receiving prenatal care and skilled birth assistance, and most children are being vaccinated. Malawi’s fertility rate, however, has only declined slowly, decreasing from more than 7 children per woman in the 1980s to about 5.5 today. Nonetheless, Malawians prefer smaller families than in the past, and women are increasingly using contraceptives to prevent or space pregnancies. Rapid population growth and high population density is putting pressure on Malawi’s land, water, and forest resources. Reduced plot sizes and increasing vulnerability to climate change, further threaten the sustainability of Malawi’s agriculturally based economy and will worsen food shortages. About 80% of the population is employed in agriculture.
Historically, Malawians migrated abroad in search of work, primarily to South Africa and present-day Zimbabwe, but international migration became uncommon after the 1970s, and most migration in recent years has been internal. During the colonial period, Malawians regularly migrated to southern Africa as contract farm laborers, miners, and domestic servants. In the decade and a half after independence in 1964, the Malawian Government sought to transform its economy from one dependent on small-scale farms to one based on estate agriculture. The resulting demand for wage labor induced more than 300,000 Malawians to return home between the mid-1960s and the mid-1970s. In recent times, internal migration has generally been local, motivated more by marriage than economic reasons.
0-14 years: 38.54% (male 4,073,674/female 4,128,035)
15-64 years: 57.64% (male 6,001,150/female 6,264,749)
65 years and over: 3.82% (2023 est.) (male 362,428/female 449,561)
2023 population pyramid: 
total dependency ratio: 84.7
youth dependency ratio: 79.7
elderly dependency ratio: 5
potential support ratio: 20.1 (2021 est.)
total: 20 years (2023 est.)
male: 19.7 years
female: 20.2 years
2.28% (2023 est.)
27.3 births/1,000 population (2023 est.)
4.5 deaths/1,000 population (2023 est.)
0 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2023 est.)
population density is highest south of Lake Nyasa as shown in this 
urban population: 18.3% of total population (2023)
rate of urbanization: 4.41% annual rate of change (2020-25 est.)
1.276 million LILONGWE (capital), 1.031 million Blantyre-Limbe (2023)
at birth: 1.01 male(s)/female
0-14 years: 0.99 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 0.96 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.81 male(s)/female
total population: 0.96 male(s)/female (2023 est.)
19.1 years (2015/16 est.)
note: data represents median age at first birth among women 20-49
381 deaths/100,000 live births (2020 est.)
total: 32.7 deaths/1,000 live births (2023 est.)
male: 37.1 deaths/1,000 live births
female: 28.2 deaths/1,000 live births
total population: 72.7 years (2023 est.)
male: 69.6 years
female: 75.9 years
3.3 children born/woman (2023 est.)
1.64 (2023 est.)
65.6% (2019/20)
improved: urban: 96.7% of population
rural: 91% of population
total: 92% of population
unimproved: urban: 3.3% of population
rural: 9% of population
total: 8% of population (2020 est.)
5.4% of GDP (2020)
0.05 physicians/1,000 population (2020)
1.3 beds/1,000 population (2011)
improved: urban: 59.9% of population
rural: 35.9% of population
total: 40% of population
unimproved: urban: 40.1% of population
rural: 64.1% of population
total: 60% of population (2020 est.)
degree of risk: very high (2023)
food or waterborne diseases: bacterial and protozoal diarrhea, hepatitis A, and typhoid fever
vectorborne diseases: malaria, dengue fever, and sexually transmitted diseases: HIV/AIDS (2024)
water contact diseases: schistosomiasis
animal contact diseases: rabies
note: on 31 August 2023, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a Travel Alert for polio in Africa; Malawi is currently considered a high risk to travelers for circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses (cVDPV); vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) is a strain of the weakened poliovirus that was initially included in oral polio vaccine (OPV) and that has changed over time and behaves more like the wild or naturally occurring virus; this means it can be spread more easily to people who are unvaccinated against polio and who come in contact with the stool or respiratory secretions, such as from a sneeze, of an “infected” person who received oral polio vaccine; the CDC recommends that before any international travel, anyone unvaccinated, incompletely vaccinated, or with an unknown polio vaccination status should complete the routine polio vaccine series; before travel to any high-risk destination, the CDC recommends that adults who previously completed the full, routine polio vaccine series receive a single, lifetime booster dose of polio vaccine
5.8% (2016)
total: 2.04 liters of pure alcohol (2019 est.)
beer: 0.08 liters of pure alcohol (2019 est.)
wine: 0 liters of pure alcohol (2019 est.)
spirits: 0.25 liters of pure alcohol (2019 est.)
other alcohols: 1.7 liters of pure alcohol (2019 est.)
total: 10.8% (2020 est.)
male: 17.5% (2020 est.)
female: 4.1% (2020 est.)
11.7% (2020)
60.7% (2022 est.)
women married by age 15: 7.5%
women married by age 18: 37.7%
men married by age 18: 7% (2020 est.)
2.9% of GDP (2020 est.)
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 67.3%
male: 71.2%
female: 63.7% (2021)
total: 11 years
male: 11 years
female: 11 years (2011)
NOTE: The information regarding Malawi on this page is re-published from the 2024 World Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence Agency and other sources. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Malawi 2024 information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Malawi 2024 should be addressed to the CIA or the source cited on each page.
This page was last modified 04 May 24, Copyright © 2024 ITA all rights reserved.
