Demographic features of the population of Malawi include population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population. Malawi derives its name from the Maravi, a Bantu people who came from the southern Congo about 600 years ago. On reaching the area north of Lake Malawi, the Maravi divided. One branch, the ancestors of the present-day Chewas, moved south to the west bank of the lake. The other, the ancestors of the Nyanjas, moved down the east bank to the southern part of the country. By AD 1500, the two divisions of the tribe had established a kingdom stretching from north of the present-day city of Nkhotakota to the Zambezi River in the south, and from Lake Malawi in the east, to the Luangwa River in Zambia in the west. Migrations and tribal conflicts precluded the formation of a cohesive Malawian society until the turn of the 20th century. In more recent years, ethnic and tribal distinctions have diminished. Regional distinctions and rivalries, however, persist. Despite some clear differences, no significant friction currently exists between tribal groups, and the concept of a Malawian nationality has begun to take hold. Predominantly a rural people, Malawians are generally conservative and traditionally nonviolent. The Chewas constitute 90% of the population of the central region; the Nyanja tribe predominates in the south and the Tumbuka in the north. In addition, significant numbers of the Tongas live in the north; Ngonis—an offshoot of the Zulus who came from South Africa in the early 19th century—live in the lower northern and lower central regions; and the Yao, who are mostly Muslim, predominate in the Southern Region of the country and live in a wide band from Blantyre and Zomba north to Lake Malawi and east to the border with Mozambique. Bantus of other tribes came from Mozambique as refugees.

Population

According to the total population was in, compared to only 2 881 000 in 1950. The proportion of children below the age of 15 in 2010 was 45.8%, 51.1% was between 15 and 65 years of age, while 3.1% was 65 years or older. Total and Percent Distribution of Population by Single Year of Age (Census 09.03.2018)

UN population projections

Numbers are in thousands. UN medium variant projections

Vital statistics

Registration of vital events is in Malawi not complete. The website Our World in Data prepared the following estimates based on statistics from the Population Department of the United Nations.

Fertility and births

Total Fertility Rate (TFR) (Wanted Fertility Rate) and Crude Birth Rate (CBR): Fertility data as of 2016 (DHS Program):

Other demographic statistics

Demographic statistics according to the World Population Review in 2019. The following demographic are from the CIA World Factbook unless otherwise indicated.

Population

Religions

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.)

Age structure

Birth rate

Death rate

Total fertility rate

Population growth rate

Median age

Mother's mean age at first birth

Contraceptive prevalence rate

Net migration rate

Dependency ratios

Urbanization

Life expectancy at birth

male: 69.33 years female: 75.59 years (2022 est.)

Sex ratio

Ratio of medical doctors to general population

1 Doctor/65,000 Malawians

Major infectious diseases

note: on 21 March 2022, 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, CDC recommends that adults who previously completed the full, routine polio vaccine series receive a single, lifetime booster dose of polio vaccine

Nationality

Ethnic groups

Languages

English (official)

Education expenditures

Literacy

definition: age 15 and over can read and write

School life expectancy (primary to tertiary education)

Unemployment, youth ages 15-24