Name: Malta - History, Geography, Economy and Culture
Uploaded: 2026-02-04T15:22:25.000Z
Duration: 19 min 32 s
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At the strategic heart of the Mediterranean lies a small group of islands.

Their long history is a timeline in microcosm of that sea as a whole.

It has been ruled by Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, Arabs, Sicilians, a religious military order, and the British.

Today, it lives on as a prosperous, urbanized and finally independent nation.

Malta is a small island nation situated in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea.

Composed of three main islands and several smaller ones.

Occupied and ruled across the ages by so many of the famous empires and nations in history, it has nonetheless maintained a culture that is today uniquely Maltese.

In this presentation, I'll look at Maltese history up to the present, its national organization and state, structure and symbols, its physical and human geography, and

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The origin of the name of the country is uncertain.

The more accepted etymology is from the Greek word for honey, meli.

And the ancient Greeks, in calling the islands melite, meaning honey sweet, may have named them after their possible production of honey.

An alternative explanation may be from the old Phoenician word maleth, meaning harbour or port, supposedly named after the island's many natural harbours.

Malta's long and storied history goes back as far as any in Europe, with megaliths upon the island confirmed to be dated to at least 3600 BC and pottery remains as far back as 5200 BC.

One of the more curious remains of prehistoric peoples are the extensive series of grooves, possibly carved by tracks in the soft limestone at the so called Clapham junction site, named after a busy London railway station.

Phoenician traders colonised the islands around 700 BC, using them as a way station on their trade routes from the eastern Mediterranean to the west and beyond into the Atlantic.

After the fall of Phoenicia to Alexander the Great In 332 BC, the islands came under the control of the former Phoenician colony Carthage.

In their wars with the Romans, the Carthaginians lost, then retook Malta before the islands finally came under Roman rule in 218 BC.

Under Roman governance lasting six centuries, Malta enjoyed a fair degree of autonomy as its own municipium, or free town.

Following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire at the Beginning of the 5th century AD, Malta was occupied by first the Vandals and then the Ostrogoths.

Before being retaken for Rome by the surviving Eastern Roman Empire, today known as Byzantium.

The Byzantines would hold the islands for the next three centuries before they fell to the Arabs in 870 as part of their conquest of Sicily.

At the time, the Arabs would hold the islands for another two centuries until they were taken back into Christian hands by the Normans in 1091.

For the next five centuries, Malta passed peacefully between various European dynasties, especially those of Iberia, and

became thoroughly Christian and westernised.

But in 1530, Maltese history took a more unique path when it was gifted by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V to the Knights Hospitaller, a religious, Catholic, Christian military order that had emerged during the Crusades against the Muslims of the previous century centuries, and

who had been expelled from the Greek island of Rhodes by the Ottoman Turks a few years earlier.

Charles faith in the Knights proved to be well founded, as only a few decades later, in 1565, Malta was besieged by 40,000 Ottoman Turks.

But under the leadership of their Grand Master, Jean Pariso de Valette, and

with the assistance of Spain and Sicily, the siege was repelled successfully, despite being outnumbered more than 4 to 1.

Following this siege, the fortifications of the island were enhanced, especially around the inner harbour, and

this new city was named in honour of the Grand Master that had pushed back the Ottomans the future capital of Valletta.

This was one of the many building projects the Knights undertook during their governance, and

which has given the island today its distinctive architectural character.

They would rule Malta for almost the next three centuries and because of this association, became more commonly known as the Knights of Malta.

Their reign came to an end, as did so many changes in Europe with the Napoleonic Wars.

At the end of the 18th century, the religious military order's possessions in France had been seized in the secular French Revolution of 1789, and

when the revolution's new leader, Napoleon, arrived in 1798, the knights surrendered without a fight.

the occupying French forces were ousted in a local uprising with the assistance of Great Britain.

An international treaty two years later would have returned the islands to the Knights, but

The Knights had never really integrated with the locals and in the latter centuries had become unpopular.

Instead, the Maltese requested protection from the British under the condition that they could not later cede the islands to any other power, but

instead hand the islands back to the locals.

In the closing stages of the Napoleonic Wars, Malta was officially passed to the British Empire as a colony in the Treaty of Paris in 1814.

Malta's position in the heart of the Mediterranean served British interests greatly as it became a resupply station for ships passing through the suez Canal from 1869 on their way to British India.

For the next century and a half of British rule, the relations between them and the locals was mixed with autonomy given in 1921 and then revoked again in 1933, for instance over local protests regarding the imposition of the English language in schools.

It was during World War II, however, that perhaps Malta's greatest hour came.

Surrounded on all sides by the Axis powers of Germany and Italy, the islands withstood relentless bombing from enemy air attacks throughout the war.

Perhaps the most famous incident was on the 9th of April 1942, when the dome of the Rotunda of Moster was pierced by a German Luftwaffe high explosive bomb which then failed to detonate.

300 people were in the church at the time awaiting the evening mass.

No one was injured and the locals hailed it as a miracle.

Despite six years of bombing, the islands held to honour the bravery of the people of Malta.

During this time they were collectively given the George Cross, the British Empire's highest civilian decoration and normally only given to individual acts of bravery.

The Maltese wear this award with pride in their flag and coat of arms.

Today, in its heroic defence during that very modern war, Malta continued its tradition as an impregnable island fortress from past centuries into recent history.

Britain eventually honoured the terms of their protectorate with the Maltese people in 1964, handing back the islands to the locals.

When Malta became an independent state in 1987, a neutrality clause was included in its constitution guaranteeing geopolitical non alignment.

However, Malta today is a republic within the British Commonwealth as well as a member of the European Union.

These last two concepts being in the EU and the Commonwealth but also non aligned might sound paradoxical and this is because of the polarized struggle between the two main political parties of Malta since independence.

The centre left Labour Party which favours Maltese non alignment and independence, geopolitically contrasts with the centre right nationalist party favouring alignment with the west and which was instrumental in the push for Malta to joining the eu, a stalemate that was finally settled by a relatively close referendum just before its accession in 2003.

The unicameral parliament of 65 members elected for five year terms is modelled on the British Westminster system.

While the elected president is the head of state, that is largely a ceremonial role with executive power coming from the Prime Minister who is the leader of the largest political party in parliament.

Malta has the highest voluntary voter turnout of any country in the world.

In terms of Local GOVERNMENT Malta is divided into 68 local councils that deal with typical municipal and city issues.

The majority of these are within the Greater Valletta area in this highly urbanised island nation.

In the Cato Institute's latest Human Freedom Index, Malta scores Well, being ranked 24th most free country overall.

The flag of Malta is a white and red bicolor with the George Cross top left.

The red and white colours were once believed to be from Roger of Sicily, who conquered the islands from the Arabs in 1091, but

this has recently been debunked as a myth.

The red and white colours of the Knights of Malta are the more likely source.

The coat of arms depicts the flag on a central shield with the fortifications of the island acting as a crown, while wreaths of olive and palm leaves flank each side.

The bottom ribbon reads Republic of Malta in the Maltese language.

Malta is situated in the central Mediterranean in a strategic narrow gap between the island of Sicily and and the North African coast of Tunisia.

At a latitude of 36 degrees north, the three inhabited islands, Malta, Gozo and Comino account for virtually all of the total land area of 315 square kilometers.

The road and ferry journey of 53 kilometers from the northwest to the southeast extreme would take about two hours.

The base of the islands is limestone, a waterable, permeable rock that accounts for the complex of inlets and natural harbours that, with the island's strategic position, have made it such a desirable base among sea powers.

The local buildings cut from the pale rock produce the lightness of colour that dominates the city of Valletta as a whole.

Along with providing white sand beaches between the cliffs that otherwise dominate the coastline.

These cliffs around the island further enhance the island's ability to act as a fortress.

The climate is Mediterranean in the koppen system, with hot, dry summers and mild wet winters.

With more than 3,000 hours of sunshine per year, it is one of the sunniest places in Europe.

But the downside is a lack of water supply.

A densely populated island nation with no permanent streams in a climate that sees almost no rain for half the year, meant that the country had to embark on a program of desalination of seawater and to meet the population's water needs.

While the natural biome is one of Mediterranean scrub of hardy shrubs and grasses known as maquis and garig, little of this remains.

With more than two thirds of the country urbanised, so much of the country is built up that it is often referred to as a city state.

With a population of just over half a million squeezed onto a small Set of islands.

Malta's population density of 1600 people per square kilometer makes it the fifth most densely populated country in the world.

This population is made up mostly of Maltese natives, with a small minority of British and EU retirees.

Malta has two official languages, English and Maltese.

The latter is a rather unique language of Semitic I.e.

of Middle Eastern origin, being a mix of medieval Romance, Sicilian and Arabic.

It is the only Semitic language that uses the Latin Alphabet and the only official Semitic language within the EU.

About 90% of the population can speak Maltese, while 96% can speak English, 62% Italian and 20% French, making it one of the most multilingual countries in Europe.

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Malta - History, Geography, Economy and Culture

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