MAPS OF HISTORY · HISTORY OF · Malawi

ONE LAND · 3 ATLASES

Malawi, on the map of history

What was Malawi before it was Malawi? Below, every era of this land in the Maps of History collection — who ruled it, what it was called, and when control changed — each line linked to the dated map that shows it. Modern borders stand in as an honest approximation; every atlas says so on the map itself.

Malawi · The Great War, 1914–1918

OPEN WWI ON THE LIVING MAP →

Malawi · The Cold War, 1945–1991

OPEN THE COLD WAR ON THE LIVING MAP →

Malawi (Nyasaland) · The Decolonization of Africa, 1945–1994

Nyasaland became Malawi in July 1964 under Hastings Banda, who had trained as a doctor in Britain and America before returning to lead the nationalist movement — and then ruled as one of Africa’s most eccentric and repressive autocrats for three decades, even trading with apartheid South Africa. A small, poor, landlocked state; a leader who embodied the one-party era’s slide from liberation to dictatorship.

OPEN THE DECOLONIZATION OF AFRICA ON THE LIVING MAP →