Package ‘mwmapdata’
May 6, 2026
Title Spatial Boundary Data for Malawi Administrative Levels
Version 1.0.0
Description Provides official spatial boundary datasets for Malawi at multiple
administrative levels: country (level 0), regions (level 1), districts
(level 2), and traditional authorities (level 3). Also includes Lake
Malawi boundary data. Boundary data are the Common Operational Datasets (COD-AB)
sourced from the National Statistics Office of Malawi and distributed via
the OCHA Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX), version 02
<[Link] Intended for use with the
'mwmap' package or any spatial analysis workflow requiring Malawi
administrative boundaries.
License MIT + file LICENSE
Encoding UTF-8
RoxygenNote 7.3.3
Depends R (>= 3.5)
Imports sf
Suggests knitr, rmarkdown, testthat (>= 3.0.0)
LazyData true
LazyDataCompression xz
URL [Link]
[Link]
BugReports [Link]
Config/testthat/edition 3
NeedsCompilation no
Author Chifundo Bita [aut, cre]
Maintainer Chifundo Bita <[Link]@[Link]>
Repository CRAN
Date/Publication 2026-05-06 11:20:02 UTC
1
2 mwmapdata_check
Contents
major_lakes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
mwmapdata_check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
mw_level_0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
mw_level_1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
mw_level_2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
mw_level_3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Index 7
major_lakes Lake Malawi Boundary
Description
Spatial data for Lake Malawi, also known as Lake Nyasa.
Usage
major_lakes
Format
An sf object with 1 feature and Natural Earth lake attributes:
name Lake name
name_alt Alternative lake name
geometry MULTIPOLYGON geometry for the lake boundary
Source
Natural Earth lake polygons
mwmapdata_check Check if mwmapdata spatial data is valid
Description
A utility to confirm that the spatial objects in mwmapdata are well-formed sf objects.
Usage
mwmapdata_check(x = mw_level_2)
mw_level_0 3
Arguments
x An sf object to check. Defaults to mw_level_2.
Value
Logical. TRUE if x is a valid sf object.
Examples
mwmapdata_check(mw_level_0)
mwmapdata_check(mw_level_2)
mw_level_0 Malawi Administrative Boundaries - Level 0 (Country)
Description
National boundary of Malawi at administrative level 0.
Usage
mw_level_0
Format
An sf object with 1 feature and 5 fields:
ADM0_EN Country name (Malawi)
ADM0_PCODE Country ISO code (MW)
area_sqkm Area in square kilometres
center_lat Centroid latitude
center_lon Centroid longitude
geometry MULTIPOLYGON geometry for the national boundary
Source
Malawi Spatial Data Platform (MASDAP) / OCHA HDX, version 2 (2023)
4 mw_level_2
mw_level_1 Malawi Administrative Boundaries - Level 1 (Regions)
Description
The three administrative regions of Malawi: Northern, Central, and Southern.
Usage
mw_level_1
Format
An sf object with 3 features and 7 fields:
ADM1_EN Region name (Northern, Central, Southern)
ADM1_PCODE Region code (MW1, MW2, MW3)
ADM0_EN Country name
ADM0_PCODE Country code
area_sqkm Area in square kilometres
center_lat Centroid latitude
center_lon Centroid longitude
geometry MULTIPOLYGON geometry for regional boundaries
Source
Malawi Spatial Data Platform (MASDAP) / OCHA HDX, version 2 (2023)
mw_level_2 Malawi Administrative Boundaries - Level 2 (Districts)
Description
District-level administrative boundaries for all 32 districts of Malawi, including the four city dis-
tricts (Blantyre City, Lilongwe City, Mzuzu City, Zomba City) added in the 2023 boundary update.
Usage
mw_level_2
mw_level_3 5
Format
An sf object with 32 features and 12 fields:
ADM2_EN District name (e.g., Lilongwe, Blantyre, Mzimba)
ADM2_PCODE District code (e.g., MW201)
ADM1_EN Region name
ADM1_PCODE Region code
ADM0_EN Country name
ADM0_PCODE Country code
area_sqkm Area in square kilometres
center_lat Centroid latitude
center_lon Centroid longitude
REGION Region name (convenience alias for ADM1_EN)
DISTRICT District name (convenience alias for ADM2_EN)
geometry MULTIPOLYGON geometry for district boundaries
Source
Malawi Spatial Data Platform (MASDAP) / OCHA HDX, version 2 (2023)
mw_level_3 Malawi Administrative Boundaries - Level 3 (Traditional Authorities)
Description
Traditional Authority (TA) level administrative boundaries representing third-level subdivisions
within districts, governed by traditional leaders.
Usage
mw_level_3
Format
An sf object with 433 features and 16 fields:
ADM3_EN Traditional Authority name
ADM3_PCODE Traditional Authority code
ADM3_REF Reference name for the Traditional Authority
ADM2_EN District name
ADM2_PCODE District code
ADM1_EN Region name
6 mw_level_3
ADM1_PCODE Region code
ADM0_EN Country name
ADM0_PCODE Country code
area_sqkm Area in square kilometres
center_lat Centroid latitude
center_lon Centroid longitude
REGION Region name (convenience alias for ADM1_EN)
DISTRICT District name (convenience alias for ADM2_EN)
TA Traditional Authority name (convenience alias for ADM3_EN)
geometry MULTIPOLYGON geometry for TA boundaries
Source
Malawi Spatial Data Platform (MASDAP) / OCHA HDX, version 2 (2023)
Index
∗ datasets
major_lakes, 2
mw_level_0, 3
mw_level_1, 4
mw_level_2, 4
mw_level_3, 5
major_lakes, 2
mw_level_0, 3
mw_level_1, 4
mw_level_2, 4
mw_level_3, 5
mwmapdata_check, 2