Malta is a city in, and the county seat of, Phillips County, Montana, United States, located at the intersection of U.S. Routes 2 and 191. The pop…Malta is a city in, and the county seat of, Phillips County, Montana, United States, located at the intersection of U.S. Routes 2 and 191. The population was 1,860 at the 2020 census. After James Hill and his partners built the St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba railway across Montana's "High Line" in 1887, Malta evolved from rail siding number 54. What came to be Saco, Montana, to the east and Dodson, Montana, to the west grew from other nearby sidings. A post office was established in Malta in 1890. Its name is said to have been determined by a spin of the globe by a Great Northern official whose finger came to rest on the island of Malta in the Mediterranean Sea.