Malters is first mentioned in second half of the 9th Century as in Maltrensi marcha.

Of the rest of the land, 9.5% is settled (buildings or roads) and the remainder (1.2%) is non-productive (rivers, glaciers or mountains).

Of the agricultural land, 60.55% is used for farming or pastures, while 4.17% is used for orchards or vine crops.

Of the settled areas, 4.73% is covered with buildings, 0.88% is industrial, 0.39% is classed as special developments, 0.25% is parks or greenbelts and 3.29% is transportation infrastructure.

[5] The municipality is located about 10 km (6.2 mi) from Lucerne along both sides of the Kleine Emme river.

It consists of the village of Malters and, until 1845, the now independent municipality of Schwarzenberg.

Most of the population (as of 2000[update]) speaks German (93.2%), with Albanian being second most common (2.8%) and Serbo-Croatian being third (0.8%).

In the 2000 census[update] the religious membership of Malters was; 4,651 (75.9%) were Roman Catholic, and 584 (9.5%) were Protestant, with an additional 63 (1.03%) that were of some other Christian faith.