Lake
Lake Malawi
Natural Earth’s outline of Lake Malawi measures about 28,800 km² (11,100 mi²), the 9th largest of the 104 lakes on sizeversus, and about the same size as Albania.
- Lake Malawi
- Albania
The numbers
- 28,800km²Area, measured11,100 mi² · Natural Earth outline
- 29,600km²Area, publishedWikidata · 2.6% above our measure
- 704mGreatest depthaverage about 291 m
- 8,400km³VolumeWikidata
- 474mAbove sea levelSurface, Wikidata
The area is measured from the outline drawn above, on the WGS84 ellipsoid; the published figure is shown beside it, and a water body is kept only if the two are within 10%.
What the numbers say about Lake Malawi
- The Caspian Sea (called a sea or a lake, depending on the definition), the largest of the 104 lakes ranked on sizeversus, is 13.2× the size of Lake Malawi; Lake Malawi ranks 9th.
- Lake Malawi sits between Great Bear Lake (30,900 km²) and Great Slave Lake (26,100 km²) in the ranking.
- Counted as a country, Lake Malawi would be larger than 70 of the 212 countries listed on sizeversus and would rank 143rd by area, between Armenia (29,600 km²) and Albania (28,300 km²).
- It is larger than 10 of the 51 US states and districts (the biggest of them is Maryland, 25,500 km²) and smaller than 41.
- It is larger than 3 of the 31 provinces and regions of China (the biggest of them is Beijing, 16,300 km²) and smaller than 28.
- The closest US state is Maryland (25,500 km²): Lake Malawi is 1.13× the size of Maryland.
- Wikidata records a greatest depth of 704 m; with its volume that gives an average depth of about 291 m.
- Wikidata records a volume of 8,400 km³. Poured over Belgium (30,700 km²), that water would stand 274 m deep.
- Its surface lies about 474 m above sea level (Wikidata).
- Lake Malawi lies at 12°S, close to the equator, where a standard web map (Web Mercator) is nearly true to size: it inflates area by only about 1.0×.
- Laid out flat, Lake Malawi stretches about 548 km north to south and 150 km east to west.
- 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.
About the same size as
Countries
On the shore
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.
Names
- Lake Malawithe name in this page’s titlesource: Wikidata’s English label
- Lake Nyasaalso calledsource: Natural Earth
- Malawialso calledsource: Natural Earth
- Lago Niassaalso calledsource: Wikidata alias
Governments and organisations use different names for this body of water, or for parts of it. Size Versus uses the name that Natural Earth’s file gives as the title, lists the other names it can source, and takes no position on which is right. The wording is the same in every language.
Where Lake Malawi ranks
Lake Malawi is the 9th largest of the 104 lakes on sizeversus, ranked by measured area.
Compare Lake Malawi
Share this outline
Sources and method
- Outline
- Natural Earth, 1:10m Lakes + Reservoirs, public domain (Lakes + Reservoirs). Outlines of lakes are drawn at 1:10 million.
- Boundary
- A lake or a sea has no legal boundary of its own. The outline is a cartographic one, and the page says so by showing the measured area beside the published one.
- Area basis
- Measured outline: computed on the WGS84 ellipsoid from the full-detail outline and shown rounded. Published figure: Wikidata (CC0), fetched 2026-11-11. An outline is kept within 10% of the published figure and matched to other places automatically within 5%.
- Depth, volume, height
- As recorded in Wikidata; a volume that cannot be right for the area and depth is left out.
- Shore
- Countries whose Natural Earth outline contains or comes close to the water's outline; computed, not a statement of ownership.
- Drawing
- Each outline is projected with an equal-area projection centred on its own centroid, so areas stay true and two can be laid over each other.
- Data built
- 2026-11-11