Lake Malawi is 1.02× the size of Albania

Lake Malawi (lake) covers about 28,800 km² (11,100 mi²) and Albania (country) about 28,300 km² (10,900 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.

28,800km²Lake Malawi
28,300km²Albania

50 km

Lake Malawi
Albania

What fits

Albania is 98% of the size of Lake Malawi.
Lake Malawi is larger by 503 km² (194 mi²), which is 1.8% of the area of Albania.
Measured in Belgiums: Lake Malawi is about 0.94, Albania about 0.92.

How they differ

Their centres are about 6,090 km apart.
On a standard web map Albania looks larger than Lake Malawi: Lake Malawi at 12°S is drawn about 1.0× too large and Albania at 41°N about 1.8×, so the map shows Albania as 1.66× the size of Lake Malawi, when Lake Malawi is 1.02× the size of Albania.
Together Lake Malawi and Albania cover 57,200 km², close to the size of Togo (56,900 km², 0.5% smaller).
The gap between them, 503 km², is about the size of Singapore (511 km²).
Albania's centre is 53.1° of latitude, about 5,900 km, farther north than Lake Malawi's.
Lake Malawi is a lake and ranks 9th of the 104 lakes on sizeversus by area.
Albania ranks 143rd of 212 countries by area.
Laid out flat, Lake Malawi stretches about 548 km north to south and 150 km east to west; Albania about 336 km by 148 km.
Poured over Albania, the 8,400 km³ that Wikidata records for Lake Malawi would stand 296 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	Lake Malawi	1.02×
Farther north	Albania	53.1° of latitude
Stretched more on a web map	Albania	1.8× against 1.0×

Both against the same yardsticks

Yardstick	Lake Malawi	Albania
Belgium 30,700 km²	0.94×	0.92×
United Kingdom 244,000 km²	0.12×	0.12×
Germany 358,000 km²	0.08×	0.08×
Japan 374,000 km²	0.08×	0.08×
France 548,000 km²	0.05×	0.05×
India 3,151,000 km²	0.01×	0.01×
Brazil 8,473,000 km²	1 in 294	1 in 299
United States 9,447,000 km²	1 in 328	1 in 333
Russia 16,980,000 km²	1 in 589	1 in 599

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

Side by side

	Lake Malawi	Albania
Is a	Lakelake on sizeversus	CountryEurope
Area, measured	28,800 km²11,100 mi²	28,300 km²10,900 mi²
Area, published	29,600 km²Wikidata	28,700 km²Wikidata
Rank by area	9th of 104lakes	143rd of 212countries
Greatest depth	704 mWikidata	–
Volume	8,400 km³	–
Latitude range	14°S to 9°S	40°N to 43°N
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 Lake Malawi

Similar in size to Albania

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