Malaga is an unincorporated community in Chelan County, Washington, on the banks of the Columbia River about six miles east-southeast of Wenatchee. Its agricultural roots run deep: grape growing in the area dates to 1868, when German immigrant "Dutch John" Galler and his wife Mary, a Wenatchee Indian, established a vineyard in the valley, and the community itself was founded in 1903 amid the region's emerging fruit industry. Malaga became part of the Wenatchee Valley's transformation into one of the nation's premier apple-growing regions, and orchard land still surrounds the community today. The setting is defined by contrast — irrigated tree-fruit blocks and vineyard slopes along the river, with sagebrush benchland and hills rising behind them. The Columbia River runs along Malaga's edge, part of a river system that supports the valley's hydroelectric and recreational life. The community's population is roughly 2,000, spread across a low-density, orchard-country landscape rather than a compact town core. Malaga is served by the Wenatchee School District, which educates the city of Wenatchee and its surrounding communities, and residents rely on Wenatchee — the self-styled "Apple Capital of the World" — for employment, shopping, healthcare, and entertainment, a drive of only a few minutes. Recreation leans on the Columbia River and the valley's outdoor setting, with golf, trails, and the larger amenities of the Wenatchee area close by. Malaga suits people who want a rural, agricultural lifestyle in the Wenatchee Valley: room for acreage, orchard views, and river proximity, all within a short drive of a mid-sized city and its schools, jobs, and services.