Swaziland. Recently renamed Eswatini – the land of the Swazi.
emblazoned with the traditional shield
A tiny kingdom sandwiched between South Africa and Mozambique.
The entire country of 17364 square kilometres can be covered in a day. North to south is 200 km, or 120 miles, and 130 kms east to west or 80 miles. A little country that packs a whack, from breath taking mountain ranges in the northwest, to verdant valleys in the middle veld, hot bushveld watched over and separated from Mozambique by the Lobamba mountains to the west.
Industry: forestry, sugar, citrus, beef, limited mining. Iron ore brought much revenue in the seventies and eighties but now mined out. Industrial diamonds, coal. Subsistence farming.
Good grade cotton, supplying factories, until China made it impossible to continue.
Six game parks ensure the continuation of its natural heritage.
One of three British Protectorates, the kingdom was granted independence in 1968. A small of neutrality in the wars of liberation that went on all around giving refuge to Mozambicans from the east, and South Africans from the west, hosting more people than its own population under the guidance of King Sobhuza 11.
Now ruled by King Mswati III and his mother, Queen Regent Ntombi. A guise of democracy to appease trading partners.
Ancestral worship, polygamy, high level of poverty and HIV/Aids infection rate.
Glenda Warburton 