Science · c. 227,000–179,000 years ago
Some of humanity's oldest bedding.
Did you know that Border Cave, a rock shelter high on the Lubombo range overlooking Eswatini, holds grass bedding laid down between about 227,000 and 179,000 years ago, among the oldest known human bedding anywhere?
Sources
Records · c. 43,000 years ago
The world's oldest known mine.
Did you know that radiocarbon dates of 41,000 to 43,000 years from Lion Cavern at the Ngwenya Mine make it the oldest known mine in the world, where people dug red and specular haematite for cosmetics and ritual?
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Science · c. 43,000 years ago
A 43,000-year-old counting stick?
Did you know that the Lebombo bone, a notched baboon fibula about 8 cm long from Border Cave in the Lubombo Mountains on the Eswatini border, is 42,000 to 43,000 years old and may be one of the earliest tally sticks?
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Economy · c. AD 400
Ochre mine turned Iron Age ironworks.
Did you know that by about AD 400 Bantu-speaking farmers at the Ngwenya ridge were smelting the same haematite that Stone Age miners had dug for ochre, turning the world's oldest mine into an Iron Age ironworks?
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Language · by the 11th century
Farmers came 700 years before kings.
Did you know that people speaking languages ancestral to today's Nguni and Sotho tongues were already farming in what is now Eswatini by the 11th century, roughly 700 years before the Dlamini kings founded the Swazi state?
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Myth or fact · 1589
The Swazi who "came from the reeds".
Did you know that Portuguese travellers in 1589 met people near the Limpopo calling themselves Vhambedzi or BaMbo, whom Swazi historian J. S. M. Matsebula linked to the Swazi, whose Dlamini praises say they came from the reeds?
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Heritage · early 1600s
Two brothers, two nations.
Did you know that, according to Swazi oral history, Chief Langa's sons Dlamini and Hlubi split their Embo followers in the early 1600s, with Dlamini's people founding the Swazi nation and Hlubi's becoming the amaHlubi of Natal?
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Economy · 17th century
The Swazi began as Tembe subjects.
Did you know that before founding their own kingdom, the ancestors of the Swazi lived for generations as subjects of the Tembe chiefs near Delagoa Bay, who grew rich on coastal trade with Portuguese and other European merchants?
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Language · c. 1745
A king who named a people.
Did you know that Swazis still call themselves bakaNgwane and their land kaNgwane after Ngwane III, the 18th-century king regarded as the founder of the modern kingdom, who ruled from Zombodze in today's Shiselweni?
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Culture · mid-18th century
No king, no Incwala.
Did you know that Swazi tradition holds that the Incwala kingship ceremony was first celebrated at Ngwane III's capital of Zombodze, and it still cannot be held without a living king: when there is no king, there is no Incwala?
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Myth or fact · c. 1815
A king killed by lightning.
Did you know that King Ndvungunye, father of Sobhuza I, is remembered as having died after being struck by lightning, and his son was later honoured with the name Somhlolo, "man of mysteries"?
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Society · c. 1820
Peace sealed by a royal marriage.
Did you know that Sobhuza I ended his feud with the powerful Ndwandwe leader Zwide by marrying Zwide's daughter Tsandzile, and that she became the mother of Mswati II and later one of Eswatini's most formidable regents?
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Geography · 1810s–1820s
War moved the kingdom north.
Did you know that Eswatini's heartland moved north because of war: threatened by the Ndwandwe and Zulu in the Mfecane, Sobhuza I shifted his royal centre from the Pongola valley into today's central Eswatini?
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Language · c. 1840
A country named after a king.
Did you know that the country takes its name from King Mswati II, whose subjects became known as the people of Mswati, so that both "Swazi" and "Eswatini", the land of the Swazi, honour a 19th-century warrior king?
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Economy · 1846
Early land deals with the Boers.
Did you know that Mswati II made some of the first land deals with Afrikaner trekkers, granting land to the Boers of Ohrigstad and Lydenburg in the 1840s and 1850s, partly as a buffer against the Zulu?
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Records · 1850s–1860s
The "Shaka of the north".
Did you know that the historian A. T. Bryant called Mswati II "a veritable Shaka of the north", because his regiments raided as far as Zimbabwe and Mozambique and his kingdom reached about twice today's size?
Sources
Society · 1865
A queen mother turned regent.
Did you know that when Mswati II died in August 1865 his mother Tsandzile Ndwandwe, known as LaZidze, went from Queen Mother to Queen Regent, running the kingdom for ten years while a successor was chosen?
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Society · 1874
A king chosen by adoption.
Did you know that after the heir Ludvonga II died of poisoning in 1874, Swazi elders asked his mother to choose another boy to be "put in her stomach", and she adopted the motherless prince Mbandzeni, who became king?
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Heritage · 1879
Swazi troops helped topple Sekhukhune.
Did you know that in 1879 a Swazi army of about 10,000 men joined British forces to storm the stronghold of the Pedi king Sekhukhune, and Britain later recognised Swaziland's independence partly in return?
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Economy · 26 March 1884
A town named after a gold digger.
Did you know that the northern town of Piggs Peak is named after William Pigg, a prospector who found a gold reef there on 26 March 1884, although forestry, not gold, became the town's main industry?
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Economy · 1880s
A kingdom signed away with crosses.
Did you know that King Mbandzeni, who could not read, signed hundreds of overlapping concessions with a cross, granting settlers rights to land, minerals, trade and even tax collection that ended up covering the whole country?
Sources
Myth or fact · 1889
A prophecy that did not come true.
Did you know that King Mbandzeni is quoted as saying on his deathbed in 1889 that "the Swazi kingship dies with me", yet the monarchy survived colonial rule and still reigns today?
Sources
Heritage · 1894
Ruled by Boers, but never annexed.
Did you know that under the 1894 Swaziland Convention, Britain let the Boer South African Republic govern Swaziland as a protectorate without annexing it, leaving the Swazi king in place?
Sources
Records · 1899
Crowned at four months old.
Did you know that King Bhunu died suddenly in December 1899, reportedly while dancing the Incwala, and his son Sobhuza II became king at about four months old, under the regency of his grandmother Labotsibeni?
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Geography · 1902
A capital named after a chief.
Did you know that Mbabane became Swaziland's administrative capital only in 1902, when the British moved their headquarters there, and the city takes its name from a local chief, Mbabane Kunene?
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Society · 1907
Buying back their own land.
Did you know that the British land partition of 1907 left the Swazi with only about a third of their own country, and Swazi workers later raised money through national funds to buy much of the land back?
Sources
Heritage · 1922
A king who sued the Empire.
Did you know that a young Sobhuza II led a Swazi delegation to London in 1922 to petition King George V to return land taken by settlers, and later took the land case to the Privy Council, but lost?
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Economy · 1939–2001
A whole town owned by a charity.
Did you know that Bulembu, built around the Havelock asbestos mine that ran from 1939 to 2001, was later bought and is now run as a whole town by a non-profit, Bulembu Ministries?
Sources
Heritage · 1941
A Second World War banner became the flag.
Did you know that Eswatini's national flag grew out of a military banner that Sobhuza II gave the Swazi Pioneer Corps in 1941, when thousands of Swazi volunteers served with British forces in the Second World War?
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Culture · 1940s
The Reed Dance is younger than you think.
Did you know that Umhlanga, the Reed Dance in which tens of thousands of young women bring reeds to the Queen Mother, took its present form only in the 1940s under Sobhuza II, adapting the older umchwasho custom?
Sources
Firsts · 1963
First park in the Valley of Heaven.
Did you know that Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary, Eswatini's oldest protected area, was created by Ted Reilly from about 1960 on a former farm and tin-mining site in the Ezulwini Valley, the "Valley of Heaven", and opened to the public in 1963–64?
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Firsts · 1963
Southern Africa's first multiracial school.
Did you know that Waterford Kamhlaba, founded near Mbabane in 1963 in defiance of apartheid, was the first school in southern Africa open to children of all races, and Nelson Mandela's children studied there?
Sources
Records · 1967
A clean sweep of every seat.
Did you know that Sobhuza II's party, the Imbokodvo National Movement, won every seat in the 1967 pre-independence election, after the king turned down the role of a purely ceremonial monarch?
Sources
Society · 6 September 1968
Independence Day honours an old king.
Did you know that Eswatini's Independence Day on 6 September is also called Somhlolo Day, after the revered King Sobhuza I, and the national stadium bears the same name?
Sources
Records · 1968
Taiwan's last friend in Africa.
Did you know that Eswatini has recognised Taiwan rather than Beijing since independence in 1968, and since 2018 it has been Taiwan's only remaining diplomatic ally in Africa?
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Society · 12 April 1973
Parties banned since 1973.
Did you know that on 12 April 1973 Sobhuza II repealed the constitution and dissolved parliament, and political parties are still unable to contest Eswatini's elections more than half a century later?
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Economy · 1974
A currency tied to the rand.
Did you know that Eswatini's currency, the lilangeni (plural emalangeni), was introduced in 1974 and is still pegged one-to-one to the South African rand, which is also accepted in the country?
Sources
Society · 1978
Elections without parties.
Did you know that Eswatini's tinkhundla system, introduced under Sobhuza II in 1978, organises elections through local chiefdom-based councils, with candidates standing as individuals rather than for parties?
Sources
Records · 1899–1982
The longest dated reign in history.
Did you know that Sobhuza II reigned for 82 years and 254 days, from infancy in 1899 to his death in 1982, the longest precisely dated reign of any monarch in recorded history?
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Society · 1920–1970
Seventy wives and 210 children.
Did you know that, according to the Swaziland National Trust Commission, Sobhuza II had 70 wives and 210 children, and left more than 1,000 grandchildren when he died in 1982?
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Society · 1983
A palace coup among the queens.
Did you know that after Sobhuza II's death the first regent, Queen Dzeliwe, was ousted in 1983 by a palace council and replaced by Queen Ntfombi, the mother of the future Mswati III?
Sources
Records · 25 April 1986
From English schoolboy to youngest king.
Did you know that Mswati III was a schoolboy at Sherborne in England when he was named heir, and at his coronation on 25 April 1986, aged 18, he became the world's youngest reigning monarch?
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Society · 2001–2005
A king who fined himself a cow.
Did you know that during the 2001–2005 umchwasho chastity rite meant to curb HIV, Mswati III married a teenager and then fined himself a cow for breaking the rule?
Sources
Geography · 2001
A 115-metre wall on the Komati.
Did you know that the Maguga Dam on the Komati River near Piggs Peak, finished in 2001 as a joint Swazi–South African project, holds back the river behind a wall 115 metres high?
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Society · 2005
A constitution with no parties.
Did you know that Eswatini's 2005 constitution, the first full charter since the independence constitution was scrapped in 1973, added a bill of rights but kept the king's executive power and gave no role to political parties?
Sources
Language · 19 April 2018
No longer mixed up with Switzerland.
Did you know that Mswati III renamed Swaziland as Eswatini on 19 April 2018, at a celebration of both 50 years of independence and his own 50th birthday, partly so the country would stop being confused with Switzerland?
Sources
Science · 2020
Beating HIV targets a decade early.
Did you know that Eswatini, which has some of the world's highest HIV rates, met the UN's 95-95-95 treatment targets by 2020, a decade early, with 97% of diagnosed people on treatment and 96% virally suppressed?
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Society · June–July 2021
The kingdom's worst unrest.
Did you know that pro-democracy protests in June and July 2021 grew into the worst unrest in Eswatini's modern history, with dozens of people killed and the internet cut off?
Sources
Society · 21 January 2023
A lawyer killed at his home.
Did you know that the prominent human rights lawyer Thulani Maseko was shot dead through the window of his home in January 2023, hours after the king warned activists not to complain about mercenaries?
Sources
Society · July 2025
US deportees sent to Eswatini.
Did you know that from July 2025 Eswatini accepted people deported from the United States who were not Eswatini citizens, agreeing to take up to 160 of them in return for about US$5.1 million, according to Amnesty International?
Sources
Firsts · November 2025
Africa's first twice-yearly HIV jab.
Did you know that in November 2025 Eswatini became the first African country to receive lenacapavir, a new HIV-prevention drug injected just twice a year?
Sources
Society · May 2026
A presidential trip that nearly failed.
Did you know that Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te reached Eswatini on 2 May 2026, days after his first attempt failed when Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar suddenly cancelled flight permits for his plane, which Taipei blamed on Beijing?
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Geography ·
Small, landlocked, two neighbours.
Did you know that Eswatini is one of Africa's smallest countries at about 17,364 square kilometres, and it is landlocked, bordered only by South Africa and Mozambique?
Sources
Geography ·
Four landscapes in a tiny country.
Did you know that Eswatini drops from 1,862 metres at Emlembe, its highest peak on the South African border, to about 21 metres on the Great Usutu River, crossing highveld, middleveld, lowveld and the Lubombo plateau along the way?
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Records ·
Eswatini's giant granite dome.
Did you know that Sibebe Rock near Mbabane, a bare granite dome rising about 350 metres above the Mbuluzi valley, is often called the world's second-largest monolith after Uluru?
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Society ·
The Lion and the She-Elephant.
Did you know that Eswatini has a dual monarchy in which the king, the Ngwenyama or "Lion", rules alongside his mother, the Indlovukazi or "Great She-Elephant", who keeps her own royal village?
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Society ·
One of the last absolute monarchs.
Did you know that King Mswati III is one of the last absolute monarchs in the world, appointing the prime minister and part of parliament and holding executive authority under the constitution?
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Culture ·
Sacred seawater for the king.
Did you know that for the Incwala ceremony royal priests called Bemanti, "people of the water", travel to the Indian Ocean near Maputo and to Eswatini's main rivers to fetch water to strengthen the king?
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Science ·
The world's highest HIV rate.
Did you know that Eswatini has had the highest HIV prevalence in the world, with roughly a quarter of adults living with the virus, which caused life expectancy to drop sharply in the early 2000s?
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Language ·
A language official in two countries.
Did you know that siSwati, the Nguni language of Eswatini and an official language alongside English, is also one of the official languages of neighbouring South Africa?
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Culture ·
Porridge, sour milk and home brew.
Did you know that classic Swazi foods include sishwala, a stiff porridge served with meat or vegetables, emasi soured milk mixed with ground maize or sorghum, and umcombotsi, a home-brewed beer?
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Nature ·
Bald ibises at the highest falls.
Did you know that Malolotja National Park holds Eswatini's highest waterfall, the 89-metre Malolotja Falls, and cliffs near the falls host a nesting colony of the rare southern bald ibis?
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Nature ·
From royal hunting ground to rhino refuge.
Did you know that Hlane Royal National Park, a former royal hunting ground named "wilderness" by Sobhuza II, is Eswatini's largest protected area and home to white rhinos, lions and elephants?
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Heritage ·
Feathers only the king may wear.
Did you know that the shield on Eswatini's flag is a black-and-white Nguni war shield, with two spears and a staff hung with injobo tassels made from widowbird and lourie feathers that only the king may use?
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Geography ·
A country with two capitals.
Did you know that Eswatini splits its capital: Mbabane is the administrative capital, while Lobamba, about 16 km away in the Ezulwini Valley, is the royal and legislative capital with parliament and the Queen Mother's village?
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Economy ·
Africa's number four in sugar.
Did you know that Eswatini is the fourth-largest sugar producer in Africa, with irrigated cane estates on the hot lowveld making sugar one of its main exports?
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