EswatinieSwatini

People have lived and worked in these hills for a very long time. At Ngwenya, in today's Malolotja reserve, miners dug red and black iron ore for pigment perhaps 40,000 years ago, making it one of the oldest known mines in the world. Later, Bantu-speaking farmers settled the valleys, and San hunters left paintings in rock shelters.

The royal Dlamini clan moved into the area from the coast near present-day Maputo in the 18th century. Ngwane III settled south of the Pongola River; his successors Sobhuza I and Mswati II gathered local clans and refugees during the upheavals of the early 19th century, much as Moshoeshoe did in Lesotho. Mswati II built a strong army and expanded the kingdom, and the people took his name: emaSwati, and the country Swaziland.

The state they built rested on two pillars: the king (Ngwenyama, 'the lion') and the queen mother (Ndlovukati, 'the she-elephant'), who share ritual authority. Regiments of men, age-sets and chiefs owed service to the crown, and royal villages at Lobamba and Ludzidzini remain the centre of national ritual.

In the 1880s, as gold was discovered in the Transvaal, Boer and British speculators flooded the kingdom seeking concessions — rights to land, grazing, minerals, even taxes and customs. King Mbandzeni signed many of them, perhaps not understanding that Europeans read them as permanent transfers. By the end of the decade almost the whole country was covered by overlapping grants.

Britain and the South African Republic contested control; after the Anglo-Boer War, Swaziland became a British High Commission Territory in 1903, and a 1907 partition left about a third of the land to settlers. For decades the monarchy and the nation raised money through migrant labour and cattle sales to buy the land back, a struggle that shaped Swazi politics.

Sobhuza II, king from 1899 (as an infant) until his death in 1982, one of the longest reigns in history, led the country to independence on 6 September 1968. In 1973 he suspended the constitution, banned political parties and ruled by decree, creating the tinkhundla system of local constituencies that still frames elections.

Mswati III was crowned in 1986 at the age of 18. He appoints the prime minister, cabinet and many members of parliament, and controls a large share of the economy through the Tibiyo TakaNgwane fund. A 2005 constitution guarantees some rights but keeps the king's powers, and parties still cannot contest elections.

Critics point to the king's wealth, palaces and many wives against the poverty of much of the population and one of the highest HIV rates in the world. In 2018 he renamed the country Eswatini, the siSwati form of its name. In mid-2021, pro-democracy protests and looting in Manzini and Mbabane were put down by the army and police; dozens were killed, and a leading opposition MP was later jailed. Human-rights lawyer Thulani Maseko was assassinated in 2023.

Eswatini is closely tied to South Africa: it shares the rand-linked currency area and the customs union, which provides much of the state's revenue. It is also one of the last countries in Africa to recognise Taiwan instead of the People's Republic of China, which brings Taiwanese aid and investment.

Umhlanga, the reed dance, takes place over about eight days in late August or early September. Unmarried girls and young women from across the country, tens of thousands of them, gather at the queen mother's royal village at Ludzidzini, cut tall reeds by the river and carry them back to repair the windbreak around her home. On the main days they dance in regiments in beaded skirts and sashes, singing as they pass the royal family.

The ceremony is presented as a celebration of chastity, national unity and service to the queen mother. It is also debated: critics have questioned its use as a stage for royal power and, in the past, as an occasion for the king to choose brides. Visitors can watch the public days; the date is set by royal officials and announced only a few weeks ahead.

Incwala, the 'first fruits' ceremony, is the most sacred event of the Swazi year. It runs for several weeks around the December–January summer solstice, timed by the moon, and renews the kingship: regiments march to gather branches and water from the sea and rivers, the king ritually tastes the new harvest, and warriors dance in leopard skins and feathers. Some days are closed to outsiders, and photography is heavily restricted.

Eswatini drops from the misty highveld around Mbabane, at about 1,200–1,800 m, through the middleveld of the Ezulwini Valley to the hot lowveld bush in the east, then rises again to the Lubombo ridge on the Mozambique border. In a country of about 17,000 km², the drive from cool pine forest to thornveld takes little more than an hour.

By the 1960s most big game had been hunted out. Ted Reilly, son of a Mlilwane farming family, turned the farm into the country's first sanctuary in 1961 and later, with royal backing, established Hlane and Mkhaya. Rhinos and elephants were reintroduced; during the poaching crisis of the late 1980s and 1990s, Eswatini passed tough anti-poaching laws, and its rhino losses stayed low compared with its neighbours.

Today Big Game Parks runs Mlilwane, Hlane and Mkhaya, while the National Trust Commission manages Malolotja and Mantenga. Sugar estates dominate the irrigated lowveld around Big Bend and Simunye, and pine and eucalyptus plantations cover much of the highveld around Piggs Peak.

About 1.2 million people live in Eswatini, almost all emaSwati sharing siSwati and a strong national identity. Homesteads (umuti) with a cattle byre at the centre still shape rural life; chiefs allocate land held in trust by the king, and extended families care for many children orphaned by HIV.

Craft is a real livelihood. Women weave lutindzi grass into baskets and bowls through cooperatives such as Gone Rural; Ngwenya Glass blows recycled bottles into animals and glasses; Swazi Candles in Malkerns makes hand-coloured wax pieces. Their fixed-price shops fund schools and community projects.

Food is built on maize — sishwala porridge, samp, roasted mealies — with emasi sour milk, pumpkin, greens and beef, the measure of wealth in a cattle culture. In late summer the marula fruit ripens, and buganu, the marula beer, is brewed and presented to the queen mother at a royal festival.