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Swaziland: South Africa
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Swaziland, consisting mostly of high plateaus and mountains, is in southern Africa. In 1949 the British government rejected a South African request for control of this small, landlocked nation. Independence was granted in 1968. The death of King Sobhuza in 1982 led to the coronation of 18-year-old King Mswati III in 1986. The king is an absolute monarch with supreme executive, legislative, and judicial powers. Nearly 60 percent of Swazi territory is held by the crown.
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The Kingdom of Swaziland is a small, landlocked country in Africa (one of the smallest on the continent), embedded between South Africa in the west, north and south and Mozambique in the east. The country is named after the Swazi, a Bantu-speaking people. It is divided into four regional administrative districts: Hhohho, Manzini, Lubombo and Shiselweni. Regions are further subdivided into tinkhundla administered by tindvuna (royal aides or governors); each inkhundla in turn comprises several chiefdoms governed by chiefs as well as urban municipal areas and private lands.
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Swaziland has 294 km (183 mi) of railroads, linking it to the ports of Maputo in Mozambique and Richard's Bay and Durban in South Africa. The road system extends 3,594 km (2,233 mi). The country's only large airport is at Matsapa, near Mbabane.
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Swaziland ranks among the more prosperous countries in Africa. Most of the high-level economic activity is in the hands of non-Africans, but ethnic Swazis are becoming more active. Small entrepreneurs are moving into middle management positions. Although 70% of Swazis live in rural areas, nearly every homestead has a wage earner. The past few years have seen wavering economic growth, which has been exacerbated by the economy's inability to create new jobs at the same rate that new job seekers enter the market. This is due in part to the country's population growth rate, which strains the natural heritage and the country's ability to provide adequate social services, such as health care and education.
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The majority of Swaziland's population is ethnically Swazi, mixed with a small number of Zulu and White Africans, mostly people of British and Afrikaner descent. Traditionally Swazi have been subsistence farmers and herders, but most now mix such activities with work in the growing urban formal economy and in government. Some Swazi work in the mines in South Africa. Swaziland ... received Portuguese settlers and African refugees from Mozambique. Christianity in Swaziland is sometimes mixed with traditional beliefs and practices. Many traditionalists would like to believe that most Swazi ascribe a special spiritual role to the monarch.
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Swaziland is surrounded to the north, west and south by the Mpumulanga of South Africa and to the east by Mozambique. There are four main topographical regions: the Highveld Inkangala, a wide ribbon of partly reforested, rugged country including the Usutu pine forest; the Peak Timbers in the northwest; the Middleveld, which rolls down from the Highveld through hills and fertile valleys; and the Lowveld, or bush country, with hills rising from 170-360m (560-1180ft). The Lubombo plateau is an escarpment along the eastern fringe of the Lowveld, comprising mainly cattle country and mixed farmland. One of the best-watered areas in southern Africa, Swaziland's four major rivers are the Komati, Usutu, Mbuluzi and Ngwavuma, flowing west–east to the Indian Ocean.
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