Headquarters Batkhela · old Protected Area · 952 km² · 826,250 people in 2023
Malakand is the short district on the pass between the Peshawar plain and Swat–Dir country. It used to be a Protected Area, not an ordinary settled district. That legal history still sits in the name. The pass is why trucks, students and fruit loads all use the same climb. Batkhela is the headquarters. Dargai is the other town people name without thinking. Thana is the third place-name on local tongues.
The district is small — 952 km² — and crowded for its size (about 868 people per km²). It is not Lower Kohistan and it is not Lower Dir. It is a gate.
Households 113,118. Population 826,250. Urban 73,590. Rural 753,260. Literacy 61.66 percent — 71.91 percent for men, 51.05 percent for women. That female figure is high next to Bajaur or Lower Kohistan. Under-tens about 245,000 (30 percent). Sex ratio about 105 men per 100 women.
Batkhela municipal count is about 73,525 in 2023 city lists — almost the whole urban row of the district. Dargai does not take that municipal slot in the same list.
Swat Ranizai (Batkhela side) — 672 km², 472,959 people, literacy about 63.6 percent. Headquarters tehsil. Batkhela bazaar is the long market people describe as having no proper junction for kilometres. Treat that as a local description, not a tourist slogan.
Sam Ranizai (Dargai side) — 280 km², 353,291 people, about 1,262 per km², literacy about 59.1 percent. Smaller land, denser. Dargai is the town name.
Thana Baizai appears as a third tehsil title on some maps. The 2023 population line for it is still blank in the same extract. Name Thana. Do not invent a total.
Government colleges sit in Batkhela and Dargai. University of Malakand is the regional campus name students use; the main site is at Chakdara on the Dir side of the river, not inside Batkhela. DHQ Malakand / Batkhela is the first hospital. Dargai keeps THQ-style cover. Female literacy at 51 percent is why this page can talk about colleges without pretending the work is finished.
Sources: PBS 2023; tehsil literacy rows for Swat Ranizai and Sam Ranizai; Batkhela municipal series. September 2026.