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This paper describes and evaluates the first demographic surveillance system (DSS) in Malawi, covering a rural population of 30,000. Unlike others, the Karonga DSS relies on trained village informants using formatted registers for the primary notification of vital events and migrations. Seven project enumerators subsequently collect detailed data on events notified by the village informants, using stringent identification procedures for households and individuals. Internal movements are traced systematically to augment event registration and data quality. Continuous evaluation of data collection is built into the methods. A re-census conducted after 2 years indicated that the routine system had registered 97% of 1,588 births, 99% of 521 deaths and 92% of 13,168 movements.