Eswatini

• 1. A Name Changed

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  On the 19th of April 2018, King Mswati III announced that the Kingdom of Swaziland would from then on be called the Kingdom of Eswatini. The date was chosen to mark fifty years since independence. In the Swazi language the new name means land of the Swazis, and it also stopped the country from being mistaken for Switzerland.

  Eswatini is a small landlocked kingdom in Southern Africa, with South Africa on three sides and Mozambique on the fourth. It is also the last absolute monarchy in Africa.

  How did a people who say they came from the reeds build a kingdom that survived the European carve-up of the continent? How does a king rule alongside elections and a parliament while political parties stay barred from running? And what is daily life like in a country with a crowded ceremonial calendar and one of the highest rates of HIV in the world?

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• 2. People of the Reeds

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  In 1589, Portuguese travellers recorded meeting a group in the Limpopo River region who called themselves Vhambedzi or BaMbo. The historian J.S.M. Matsebula reads this as an early form of the Swazi name. He links it to reeds, which he says the ancestors used to cross the Zambezi.

  The Dlamini clan's praise names seem to agree. One line, tsine lesavela eluhlangeni, means we originated from the reeds. Another, nine beluhlanga, means you of the reeds.

  People lived here long before any of this. Stone tools show human activity from around 200,000 years ago, and rock paintings range from about 27,000 years ago to the 19th century. Khoisan hunter-gatherers came first. Nguni-speaking newcomers largely replaced them, bringing cattle, seeds, and handmade goods of iron, wood, skin, and clay. Farming and iron use show up from about the 4th century.

  The Swazi trace themselves to the Embo-Dlamini, a branch of the Embo-Nguni who settled near Delagoa Bay, today's Maputo. There they were a small chiefdom led by Chief Langa, living under the shadow of the larger Tembe chiefs. Nineteenth-century British colonial records even linked the Tembe and Swazi chieftaincies in a single phrase about the Kings of Swazi and Tembe.

  A king named Dlamini III led the Swazi from about 1720 until 1744, advised by Chief Mbokane. His son Ngwane III is counted as the first king of modern Swaziland. The country was first called KaNgwane, meaning country of Ngwane, and his people became the BakaNgwane. Conflict with the Ndwandwe pushed Ngwane III northward, and he set his capital at Shiselweni, at the foot of the Mhlosheni hills.

  Under Sobhuza I the capital moved to Zombodze, in the heartland of present-day Eswatini. Along the way the Swazi absorbed older clans they called Emakhandzambili, meaning those found ahead. At first these clans kept wide autonomy and sometimes special ritual standing.

  Mswati II ended that arrangement. Remembered as the greatest of the fighting kings, he attacked and subdued some of these clans in the 1850s. He also took in refugees, who became known as Emafikamuva, those who came later. His reign stretched the kingdom to twice the size of today's country, and it is from him that both Swaziland and Eswatini take their names. That sprawling realm would not stay intact for long once European governments took an interest.

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• 3. Land Under Pressure

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  In 1881, the British government signed a convention that recognised Swazi independence, even as the Scramble for Africa was under way. The London Convention of 1884 confirmed it. Yet independence on paper did not protect the land itself.

  King Mbandzeni granted many concessions to Europeans, covering farming and grazing, and the result was a tangled pattern of land ownership. Some senior chiefs moved to farms as part of these deals. Ntengu Mbokane relocated towards the Lubombo region, near modern Nsoko. Mshiza Maseko moved towards the Komati River, to a place called eLuvalweni. After Mbandzeni died in 1890, a convention set up a Chief Court to settle disputes over land and minerals.

  That same year, a triumviral administration took charge, representing the British, the Dutch republics, and the Swazi. A convention in 1894 made Swaziland a protectorate of the South African Republic. This lasted under King Ngwane V until the Second Boer War broke out in October 1899.

  Ngwane V died in December 1899, in the middle of the incwala ceremony. His successor, Sobhuza II, was four months old. Skirmishes between British and Boer forces took place on Swazi soil until 1902.

  After the British victory, Swaziland became a High Commission Territory in 1903, alongside Basutoland, now Lesotho, and Bechuanaland, now Botswana. No protectorate was declared, because terms could not be agreed with the Queen Regent, Labotsibeni Mdluli.

  A commission was then set up in 1904 to examine every concession and define its boundaries. Its work was finished by 1907. A partition commissioner could take up to one third of each concession without paying compensation. By 1910 he had set aside 1,639,687 acres for the Swazi, some 38% of the territory. The queen regent urged Swazi men to work in the Transvaal and earn money to buy more land back.

  Sobhuza II was crowned in December 1921. In 1922 he led a deputation to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London over the land question, and it failed. Between 1923 and 1963 he founded the Swazi Commercial Amadoda, which licensed small businesses on Swazi reserves. He also founded the Swazi National School to counter the missions' hold on education. The royal leadership resisted both a weakening British administration and any plan to fold Swaziland into the Union of South Africa.

  Britain promulgated a constitution in November 1963, creating a Legislative Council and an Executive Council. The king's Swazi National Council, known as the Liqoqo, opposed it, but elections went ahead. The first Legislative Council met on the 9th of September 1964, by which time the Swazi reserve had grown to 56% of the country. Further elections in 1967 followed a revised constitution with a House of Assembly and Senate. Independence came on the 6th of September 1968.

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• 4. Crown and Parliament

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  On the 12th of April 1973, King Sobhuza II annulled the Westminster-style constitution adopted at independence. By decree he took supreme power in executive, judicial, and legislative matters. He ruled that way until his death in 1982, after almost 83 years on the throne, making him the longest-reigning monarch in history. The first non-party elections for the House of Assembly came in 1978, held through constituencies called tinkhundla that the king determined.

  A regency followed. Queen Regent Dzeliwe Shongwe led until 1984, when the Liqoqo removed her and installed Queen Mother Ntfombi Tfwala. Her son was crowned as King Mswati III and ngwenyama in 1986.

  In 1982, South Africa and Swaziland negotiated a deal to hand over parts of KwaZulu and KaNgwane. It would have given the landlocked kingdom a path to the sea. Sobhuza II had claimed the area as part of the Swazi monarchs' traditional realm, and South Africa wanted it as a buffer against guerrilla infiltration from Mozambique. People living there opposed the plan and it was never carried out. South Africa responded by temporarily suspending the autonomy of KaNgwane.

  The king is called ngwenyama, which literally means lion. By tradition he reigns alongside his mother, the ndlovukati, or she-elephant. She was meant to be the spiritual head of the nation and a real counterweight to him, though her role became largely symbolic under Sobhuza II. The king appoints the prime minister and a majority of senators, and fills a minority of House seats with representatives of special interests such as chiefs, scholars, or business leaders.

  The Libandla, or parliament, has two chambers. The Senate has 30 seats, with 10 chosen by the House of Assembly and 20 by the monarch. The House of Assembly has 65 seats, with 10 appointed by the monarch and 55 elected.

  Voting begins at the chiefdoms, where a nominee's name is raised by a show of hands and needs the support of at least ten members. Each chiefdom must field between four and ten nominees. Primary voting is by secret ballot, and winners go forward to the final round at the tinkhundla. Until the 1993 election, the ballot was not secret and voters were not even registered. They walked through a gate marked for their chosen candidate while officials counted them. The latest elections were held on the 29th of September 2023, without parties. By the V-Dem democracy indices, Eswatini ranks 9th lowest worldwide.

  Pressure for change built in the 1990s through student and labour protests. In July 1996, Mswati III appointed a constitutional review commission of chiefs, activists, and unionists. Drafts released in May 1999 and November 2000 drew strong criticism. A 15-member drafting team announced in December 2001 included several people reported to be close to the royal family. The current constitution arrived in 2005, over the objections of activists, and it does not clearly settle the status of political parties.

  The first election under it, in 2008, filled seats from 55 tinkhundla. In 2011, falling receipts from the Southern African Customs Union caused an economic crisis. South Africa offered a loan with conditions that included political reforms, and the government refused them. Receipts improved from 2012. After the 2013 election, the king reappointed Sibusiso Dlamini as prime minister for a third time.

  In September 2018, the Trade Union Congress of Eswatini organised a three-day strike over low salaries that caused widespread disruption. In June 2021, pro-democracy protests spread across the country. Protesters torched buildings said to be tied to Mswati III. At least 20 people were killed by state security forces. The New York Times called it "the most explosive civil unrest in its 53 years of independence". The government shut down the internet with the cooperation of mobile providers MTN and Eswatini Mobile. Reports that the king had fled were disputed by officials.

  The courts form a dual system. Western-style magistrates courts, a High Court, and a Supreme Court sit beside traditional Swazi courts for minor offences. The king appoints judges, who are usually expatriates from South Africa. The defence force, of about 3,000 personnel, has never fought a foreign conflict and is used mainly during domestic protests. The king is its commander-in-chief.

  Eswatini is the only country in Africa that keeps ties with Taiwan rather than China. In July 2025, the United States deported five men there, and by October ten more had followed. The finance minister confirmed that the government had received $5.1 million as part of an agreement to act as a third-country deportation destination.

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• 5. Highveld to Lowveld

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  The country covers 17364 square kilometres, and it measures no more than 200 km north to south and 130 km east to west. Within that small frame, four regions run from north to south, set by elevation.

  Mbabane, the capital, sits on the Highveld. The Middleveld, around 700 m above sea level, is the most densely populated zone, and the commercial and industrial city of Manzini lies there. The Lowveld, around 250 m, is thinly settled bush country of thorn trees and grasslands. Along the eastern border with Mozambique run the Lebombo Mountains, at about 600 m, cut by the canyons of the Ngwavuma, the Great Usutu, and the Mbuluzi. The western border, at an average of 1200 m, rests on the edge of an escarpment.

  Rain falls mostly between December and March, often as thunderstorms. The Highveld in the west gets between 700 and 1550 mm a year, while the Lowveld records only 200 to 550 mm. Summers in the Lowveld can reach around 40 °C, while the Highveld is temperate and seldom uncomfortably hot. Mbabane averages 20 °C in summer and 13 °C in winter.

  The weather is already costing the country. The 2015-16 drought cut exports of sugar and soft drink concentrate, which are Eswatini's largest exports. The government has said that climate change worsens poverty, HIV, and food insecurity, and will sharply limit development.

  The country holds over 820 species of vertebrates and over 2,400 species of plants, many of them endemic. Records list 507 bird species, including 11 that are globally threatened. They include several kinds of vultures, martial eagles, bateleurs, and the southernmost nesting site of the marabou stork. There are 107 native mammals, among them the critically endangered South-central black rhinoceros.

  There are six formal protected areas: Malolotja Nature Reserve, Mantenga Nature Reserve, Mlawula Nature Reserve, Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary, Mkhaya Game Reserve, and Hlane Royal National Park. More than ten informal ones exist, and together protected land makes up about 5% of the country. Plantation agriculture, bush-clearing, invasive plants, and unsustainable harvesting fragment the land. The country scored 4.21 out of 10 on the 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index, ranking 142nd of 172.

  From 2014 to 2021, a project called Strengthening the National Protected Areas System tried to widen conservation. In 2018 the United Nations Development Programme created a category called Other Effective Conservation Measures for informal reserves. In 2021, the project began certifying such areas in Eswatini.

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• 6. Sugar and the Rand

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  Sugarcane is Eswatini's largest export, and its cost is described bluntly by the International Trade Union Confederation. It refers to "arduous and unhealthy working conditions, miserable wages and violent repression of any attempt to unionise." Building plantations has involved forced evictions of rural communities, child labour, and work weeks of up to 60 hours.

  Services make up about 50% of GDP, with government services in the lead. Manufacturing, mainly textiles and sugar-related processing, accounts for 37%, and agriculture, forestry, and mining for about 13%. About 75% of people work in subsistence farming on Swazi Nation Land, where productivity and investment are low. Title Deed Lands grow the high-value crops, including sugar, forestry, and citrus, with heavy investment and irrigation.

  South Africa supplies over 90% of Eswatini's imports and takes about 70% of its exports. The lilangeni is pegged to the South African rand, so monetary policy is effectively set next door. Customs duties and worker remittances from South Africa add to local income. Trade preferences with the United States, under the African Growth and Opportunity Act, and with the European Union helped apparel and sugar exports grow rapidly. Those preferences are now being removed or phased out.

  Real GDP growth has averaged 2.8% since 2001, nearly 2 percentage points below other Southern African Customs Union members. Repeated droughts, the effects of HIV/AIDS, and a large, inefficient government sector are likely causes. Even so, the country is not poor enough to qualify for an IMF programme. By 2018 public services were poorly developed, with only twelve public ambulances in the country.

  Much of the wealth sits with the state and the king. Tibiyo Taka Ngwane, the king's sovereign wealth fund, owns a majority of Royal Eswatini Sugar Corporation, and the government holds another 6.5%. Mswati III receives 8% of the national budget for official expenses, while the police and the armed forces each receive 5%. Some 15,000 private businessmen, including descendants of British settlers and South African investors, operate in the country, where workers cost about a third of South African pay.

  Tourism grew during the apartheid era, when visitors came for television, sporting events, and gambling not available in South Africa. Arrivals rose from 89,015 in 1972 to 257,997 in 1989. The Eswatini Tourism Board, founded in 2003, now promotes royal celebrations and game parks. In 2006, the Lubombo Route agreement with South Africa and Mozambique allowed travel across all three borders on a single visa.

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• 7. Homestead and Ceremony

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  The incwala ceremony falls on the fourth day after the full moon nearest the longest day, the 21st of December. It is often translated as first fruits, since the king tastes the new harvest. Yet it is better understood as a Kingship Ceremony, because without a king there is no incwala, and it is a crime for anyone else to hold one. Its key figures include the queen mother, the royal wives, the indunas, the regiments, and the bemanti, or water people. The climax comes on the fourth day of the Big Incwala.

  The annual Umhlanga Reed Dance is the best-known event. Over eight days in late August or early September, girls cut reeds, present them to the Queen Mother, and dance. Only childless, unmarried girls may take part. A commoner girl is chosen as induna, or captain, and announces the dates over the radio. One of the king's daughters acts as her counterpart.

  The Reed Dance is not ancient. It grew out of the umchwasho custom, in which young girls were placed in an age-regiment. If a girl became pregnant outside marriage, her family paid a fine of one cow to the local chief. The country remained under umchwasho until 2005.

  The traditional homestead is a beehive hut thatched with dry grass. In a polygamous household each wife has her own hut and yard behind reed fences. At the centre is the cattle byre, a circle of large logs that serves as a store of wealth and a symbol of prestige. It holds sealed grain pits. Facing it stands the great hut, home of the headman's mother. The headman advises his wives and spends time guiding the boys of the household on growing into manhood.

  A sangoma is a diviner chosen by a family's ancestors. Training is called kwetfwasa and ends with a graduation of feasting and dancing. The sangoma diagnoses sickness through kubhula, a process of communication in trance. An inyanga, a medical specialist, throws bones in a practice called kushaya ematsambo to find the cause of an illness.

  SiSwati has 2.5 million speakers and is official alongside English, which is used in schools, business, and the press. About 76,000 people speak Zulu and about 19,000 speak Tsonga. Portuguese has been added in schools because of the large Portuguese-speaking community from Mozambique.

  Eighty-three percent of the population is Christian. African Zionist churches account for 37.6%, and Catholics for 3.7%. Fifteen percent follow traditional religions. On the 18th of July 2012, Ellinah Wamukoya was elected Anglican Bishop of Swaziland, the first woman bishop in Africa. She served until her death in 2021.

  Formal handcraft businesses employ over 2,500 people, many of them women, making housewares and glass, stone, and wood art. On the sporting side, Eswatini has sent athletes to the Summer Olympics since 1972 without winning a medal. Its boxers and marathon runners have won medals at the Commonwealth Games.

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• 8. Health and Schooling

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  In 2019, Eswatini had the highest prevalence of HIV among people aged 15 to 49 in the world, at 27.1%. Tuberculosis is also widespread, though less so. In 2018, life expectancy was 58 years, the 12th lowest in the world. Young people dominate the population, with those aged 14 or younger making up 35% and the median age at 22. The 2024 global hunger index gave the country 15.7, placing it 74th.

  Schooling begins at age six with a seven-year primary programme that ends in a grade 7 examination. Secondary school lasts five years, three junior and two senior. Pupils must pass the Junior Certificate to continue, and the final exams include the International General Certificate of Secondary Education, accredited by Cambridge. Primary education is free for the early grades and for orphaned and vulnerable children, but it is not compulsory. Only 21.6% of preschool-age children have access to early childhood education.

  The country has 830 public schools, 34 recognised private schools, and 14 unrecognised private ones. In 1996, net primary enrolment stood at 90.8%, with equal numbers of girls and boys.

  Waterford School opened in 1963 as the first multiracial school in southern Africa. In 1981, it joined the United World Colleges movement as the first on the African continent, and it remained the only African one until UWC East Africa in Tanzania joined in 2019.

  The University of Eswatini, the national university, was created by act of Parliament in 1982. It is headquartered at Kwaluseni, with campuses at Mbabane and Luyengo. The Southern African Nazarene University in Manzini was formed in 2010 by merging three colleges. Eswatini Medical Christian University, in Mbabane, is the newest, established in 2012, the same year a campus of Limkokwing University opened at Sidvwashini.

  Technical training centres sit in Matsapha, Manzini, Nhlangano, and Siteki. For managers, the Mananga Management Centre opened at Ezulwini in 1972 as an international development centre for middle and senior staff.

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