World Heritage Identification Number: 289
World Heritage since: 1984
Category: Natural Heritage
WHE Type: Protected Areas & National Parks
Transboundary Heritage: No
Endangered Heritage: No
Country: 🇲🇼 Malawi
Continent: Africa
UNESCO World Region: Africa
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A Biodiversity Haven: Lake Malawi National Park
Lake Malawi National Park, located at the southern end of the vast expanse of Lake Malawi in Malawi, Southeast Africa, stands out as a unique and significant conservation area. Established in 1984, it is the only national park in Malawi specifically designed to protect fish and aquatic ecosystems. This designation reflects the park's exceptional importance for the study of evolution, akin to the renowned Galapagos Islands and their finch population.
More to come…UNESCO Description of the World Heritage Site
Located at the southern end of the great expanse of Lake Malawi, with its deep, clear waters and mountain backdrop, the national park is home to many hundreds of fish species, nearly all endemic. Its importance for the study of evolution is comparable to that of the finches of the Galapagos Islands.
UNESCO Justification of the World Heritage Site
Criterion (vii): The property is an area of exceptional natural beauty with its islands and clear waters set against the background of the Great African Rift Valley escarpment. Habitat types vary from rocky shorelines to sandy beaches and from wooded hillsides to swamps and lagoons. Granitic hills rise steeply from lakeshore and there are a number of sandy bays.
Criterion (ix): The property is an outstanding example of biological evolution. Adaptive radiation and speciation are particularly noteworthy in the small brightly coloured rocky-shore tilapiine cichlids (rockfish), known locally as mbuna. All but five of over 350 species of mbuna are endemic to Lake Malawi and represented in the park. Lake Malawi's cichlids are considered of equal value to science as the finches of the Galapagos Islands remarked on by Charles Darwin or the honeycreepers of Hawaii.
Criterion (x): Lake Malawi is globally important for biodiversity conservation due to its outstanding diversity of its fresh water fishes. The property is considered to be a separate bio-geographical province with estimates of up to c.1000 species of fish half occurring within the property: estimated as the largest number of fish species of any lake in the world. Endemism is very high: of particular significance are the cichlid fish, of which all but 5 of over 350 species are endemic. The lake contains 30% of all known cichlids species in the world. The property is also rich in other fauna including mammals, birds and reptiles.
Encyclopedia Record: Lake Malawi National Park
Lake Malawi National Park is a national park at the southern end of Lake Malawi in Malawi, Southeast Africa. It is the only national park in Malawi that was created with the purpose of protecting fish and aquatic habitats. Despite this being its main purpose, Lake Malawi National Park includes a fair amount of land, including a headland, the foreshore and several small rocky islands in Lake Malawi.Additional Site Details
Area: 9,400 hectares
Number of Components: 1
(ix) — Outstanding example representing ecological and biological processes
(x) — Contains most important habitats for biodiversity
Coordinates: -14.03333 , 34.88333
IUCN World Heritage Outlook
The 2025 Conservation Outlook on Lake Malawi National Park reports the following assessment:
Source: International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) · View assessment
Image
© Joachim Huber from Switzerland, CC BY-SA 2.0 Resized from original. (This derivative is under the same CC BY-SA license.)
