Malia is a town with 2500 permanent inhabitants. Its population becomes greater during the summer time, due to the people who work at the tourism industry, offering the tousands of tourists who are visiting Malia every year, a large number of services.
The town covers an extensive area. The old part of the town is more compact with narrow streets full of taverns, bars, stores, etc. and is usually crowded, especially at night.
The development is still in progress and today the municipality is trying to make a modern town preserving its old character.

The History of Malia

Malia was always a rich place because of its geographical position, and its fertile land. It is believed that its name derives from the the word "mali"= wealth but more probable is that it comes from the name "omalia" which means smoothnes of the ground, and is common to many Cretan places.

During the Venetian ocuupation Malia was a quite big village with 620 inhabitants (1583 AC) and is mentoned at the Vnetian maps as "vila di Malia".
During the Turkish occupation it has only christian inhabitants (800), but the Turks used the place as the base of their operations against Mirabello.