The Malwa is the country south of the Sutlej: Ludhiana, Patiala, Sangrur, Barnala, Bathinda, Mansa, Moga, Faridkot, Muktsar, Ferozepur, Fazilka. It is the largest of the three regions of Indian Punjab by area and population.
It was Cis-Sutlej, under British protection from 1809 rather than under the Lahore state, and it held the Phulkian princely states. Its political history is therefore entirely different from the Majha's.
It is drier than the Majha and the Doaba, was settled later in much of its extent, and has the heaviest cotton and paddy cultivation, the deepest agrarian distress, the largest dera presence and the highest concentration of landless Dalit population.
Malwai Punjabi is a distinct dialect, and most Punjabi popular music of the last thirty years is sung in it rather than in Majhi.
Kila Raipur, Muktsar's Maghi mela, Talwandi Sabo, Anandpur's Hola Mohalla approach, the kabaddi circuit and the muzara movement are all Malwa.
Patiala, Nabha, Jind, Faridkot and Malerkotla were all Malwa states, so the region carries almost all of Punjab's palaces, state archives, arms collections and court architecture. The Majha has essentially none of it.
Its towns are mandi towns. Khanna, Rampura Phul, Jagraon, Barnala and Malout exist because grain is auctioned in them, and the whole year in each of them is arranged around a procurement season.
Malwai is the speech of the largest number of Punjabi speakers in India and it is not the written standard. The Malwa's music, its wrestling, its kabaddi and most of its popular culture carry that speech.
Punjab district gazetteers.