Definition
GEO1_MW identifies the household's district within Malawi in 1998 and 2008. Districts are the first level administrative units of the country. GEO1_MW is spatially harmonized to account for political boundary changes across census years. Some detail is lost in harmonization; see the comparability discussion. A GIS map (in shapefile format), corresponding to GEO1_MW can be downloaded from the GIS Boundary files page in the IPUMS International web site.
The full set of geography variables for Malawi can be found in the IPUMS International Geography variables list. For cross-national geographic analysis on the first and second major administrative level refer to GEOLEV1, and GEOLEV2. More information on IPUMS-International geography can be found here.