Belgium is 1.06× the size of Lake Malawi

Belgium (country) covers about 30,700 km² (11,800 mi²) and Lake Malawi (lake) about 28,800 km² (11,100 mi²). Below, both outlines are drawn at one scale and centred on each other. The Lake Malawi outline is Natural Earth’s, checked against the published area.

30,700km²Belgium
28,800km²Lake Malawi

50 km

Belgium
Lake Malawi

What fits

Lake Malawi is 94% of the size of Belgium.
Belgium is larger by 1,830 km² (707 mi²), which is 6.3% of the area of Lake Malawi.
Measured in Switzerlands: Belgium is about 0.74, Lake Malawi about 0.70.

How they differ

Their centres are about 7,540 km apart.
A standard web map misstates the comparison: Belgium at 51°N is drawn about 2.5× too large and Lake Malawi at 12°S about 1.0×, so the map shows Belgium as 2.53× the size of Lake Malawi instead of 1.06×.
Together Belgium and Lake Malawi cover 59,500 km², close to the size of Togo (56,900 km², 4.4% smaller).
The gap between them, 1,830 km², is about the size of Mauritius (2,000 km²).
Belgium's centre is 62.6° of latitude, about 6,960 km, farther north than Lake Malawi's.
Belgium ranks 140th of 212 countries by area.
Lake Malawi is a lake and ranks 9th of the 104 lakes on sizeversus by area.
Laid out flat, Belgium stretches about 222 km north to south and 271 km east to west; Lake Malawi about 548 km by 150 km.
Poured over Belgium, the 8,400 km³ that Wikidata records for Lake Malawi would stand 274 m deep.
Our measured 28,800 km² is 2.6% below Wikidata’s published figure of 29,600 km². Published areas of lakes and seas move with the water level and with what is counted, so a few percent is expected.

Who wins on what

Measure	Winner	By
Larger area	Belgium	1.06×
Farther north	Belgium	62.6° of latitude
Stretched more on a web map	Belgium	2.5× against 1.0×

Both against the same yardsticks

Yardstick	Belgium	Lake Malawi
United Kingdom 244,000 km²	0.13×	0.12×
Germany 358,000 km²	0.09×	0.08×
Japan 374,000 km²	0.08×	0.08×
France 548,000 km²	0.06×	0.05×
India 3,151,000 km²	0.01×	0.01×
Brazil 8,473,000 km²	1 in 276	1 in 294
United States 9,447,000 km²	1 in 308	1 in 328
Russia 16,980,000 km²	1 in 554	1 in 589

Each figure is the place's area divided by the yardstick's.

Side by side

	Belgium	Lake Malawi
Is a	CountryEurope	Lakelake on sizeversus
Area, measured	30,700 km²11,800 mi²	28,800 km²11,100 mi²
Area, published	30,700 km²Wikidata	29,600 km²Wikidata
Rank by area	140th of 212countries	9th of 104lakes
Greatest depth	–	704 mWikidata
Volume	–	8,400 km³
Latitude range	49°N to 51°N	14°S to 9°S
On the shore	–	3 on the shore

Published figures: Wikidata (CC0). A lake or a sea has no legal boundary: the measured area is that of Natural Earth’s outline, and it is shown beside the published one.

Natural Earth’s outlines of Malawi, Tanzania and Mozambique contain or lie within 4 km of the outline of Lake Malawi. That is what its geometry says, and it is not a statement about who owns the water or where any border runs in it.

Similar in size to Belgium

Similar in size to Lake Malawi

More comparisons

Sources and method

Outlines: Lakes and seas: Natural Earth 1:10m physical vectors (public domain), kept only where the measured area is within 10% of the published one. Countries and regions: Natural Earth, 1:10m Admin 0 and Admin 1, public domain.
Boundary: De facto, as drawn by Natural Earth. A lake or a sea has no legal boundary of its own; the outline is a cartographic one.
Area: Measured on the WGS84 ellipsoid from the full-detail outlines, shown rounded. The published figure comes from Wikidata (CC0), fetched 2026-11-11, and is shown beside the measured one.
Drawing: Each outline is projected with an equal-area projection centred on its own centroid, so areas stay true and the two can be laid over each other.
Data built: 2026-11-11

Full method