Lake Malawi

Where is Lake Malawi?

Countries on its shores: Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania.

Largest lake of: Malawi, Mozambique.

Middle of the lake: 12.00° S, 34.50° E

The story behind it

Lake Malawi stretches about 580 kilometres from north to south, yet at its widest it is only about 75 kilometres across. Because it lies in a rift, a long crack in the Earth's crust, its water is more than 700 metres deep in places. The lake is famous for its cichlids, fish that come in an amazing number of different kinds. Scientists have counted at least 700 kinds of cichlids here, and almost all of them live nowhere else on Earth. Every day fishers go out on the water, and the lake's fish help more than 1.6 million people make a living. On Likoma Island stands a large church that was finished in 1911. Lake Malawi is the biggest lake in both Malawi and Mozambique. In Tanzania people call it Lake Nyasa, and in Mozambique Lago Niassa.

Find it on the globe

Lake Malawi is there as a small blue dot with its name, right on the water. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.

It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.