Eswatini, formally the Kingdom of Eswatini, also known by its former official names Swaziland and the Kingdom of Swaziland, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. It is bordered by South Africa on all sides except the northeast, where it shares a border with Mozambique.
Map of Eswatini
Understanding Time Differences
World time zones have a positive or negative offset computed from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), or Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). UTC has uniform seconds defined by International Atomic Time (TAI), with leap seconds announced at irregular intervals to compensate for the Earth's slowing rotation. The tz database or zoneinfo database uses the closest city, rather than the more common Eastern, Central, Mountain or Pacific time zones in the United States.
Understanding Time Zones
Travelmath provides an online time zone converter for places all over the world. You can enter airports, cities, states, countries, or zip codes to find the time difference between any two locations. The calculator will automatically adjust for daylight saving time (DST) in the summer. You can use it as a meeting planner or a scheduler to find the best time to make international phone calls.
Coordinating Calls with Eswatini
If you live in United States and you want to call a friend in Swaziland, you can try calling them between 10:00 PM and 2:00 PM your time, but you want to reach someone in Swaziland at work, you may want to try between 12:00 AM and 8:00 AM your time. meeting at the best time for both parties, you should try between 8:00 AM and 9:00 AM your time in United States between your normal working hours and theirs.
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Geography and Climate
At no more than 200 km (120 mi) north to south and 130 km (81 mi) east to west, Eswatini is one of the smallest countries in Africa; despite this, its climate and topography are diverse, ranging from a cool and mountainous highveld to a hot and dry lowveld. A small landlocked kingdom with an area of 17,364 km2 (6,704 sq mi), Eswatini is located at approximately 26°30'S, 31°30'E and is bordered in the north, west and south by South Africa and by Mozambique in the east. Along the eastern border with Mozambique are the Lebombo Mountains, a mountain ridge at an altitude of around 600 metres (2,000 ft). The mountains are broken by the canyons of three rivers, the Ngwavuma, the Great Usutu and the Mbuluzi.
Eswatini is separated into four geographical regions. These run from north to south and are determined by elevation. Mbabane, the capital, is on the Highveld. The Middleveld, lying at an average 700 metres (2,300 ft) above sea level, is the most densely populated region of Eswatini with a lower rainfall than the mountains. Manzini, the principal commercial and industrial city, is situated in the Middleveld. The Lowveld, at around 250 metres (820 ft), is less populated than other areas and presents a typical African bush country of thorn trees and grasslands.
Eswatini is divided into four climatic regions: the Highveld, Middleveld, Lowveld, and Lubombo plateau. Generally speaking, rain falls mostly during the summer months (December to March), often in the form of thunderstorms. Winter is the dry season. Annual rainfall is highest on the Highveld in the west, between 1,000 and 2,000 mm (39.4 and 78.7 in). The further east, the less rain, with the Lowveld recording 500 to 900 mm (19.7 to 35.4 in) per annum. Variations in temperature are also related to the altitude of the different regions.
The government of Eswatini has expressed concern that climate change is exacerbating existing social challenges such as poverty, a high HIV prevalence, and food insecurity and will drastically restrict the country's ability to develop, as per Vision 2022. Economically, climate change has already adversely impacted Eswatini. For instance, the 2015-16 drought decreased sugar and soft drink concentrate production export (Eswatini's largest economic export).
History of Eswatini
Artifacts have been found indicating human activity dating back to the early Stone Age, around 200,000 years ago. The earliest known inhabitants of the region were Khoisan hunter-gatherers. They were largely replaced by the Nguni during the great Bantu migrations. These peoples originated from the Great Lakes region of eastern and central Africa. Evidence of agriculture and iron use dates from about the 4th century.
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The Swazi settlers, then known as the Ngwane (or bakaNgwane) before entering Swaziland, had been settled on the banks of the Pongola River. Before that, they were settled in the area of the Tembe River near present-day Maputo, Mozambique. Continuing conflict with the Ndwandwe people pushed them further north, with Ngwane III establishing his capital at Shiselweni at the foot of the Mhlosheni hills. Under Sobhuza I, the Ngwane people established their capital at Zombodze in the heartland of present-day Eswatini. The names "Swaziland" and "Eswatini" both derive from a later king named Mswati II. KaNgwane, named for Ngwane III, is an alternative name for Eswatini, the surname of whose royal house remains Nkhosi Dlamini. Mswati II was the greatest of the fighting kings of Swaziland, and he greatly extended the area of the country to twice its current size.
The autonomy of the Swazi nation was influenced by British and Dutch rule of southern Africa in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1881, the British government signed a convention recognising Swazi independence, despite the Scramble for Africa that was taking place at the time. King Mbandzeni created a complex pattern of land ownership by granting many concessions to Europeans.
Swaziland was given a triumviral administration in 1890, representing the British, the Dutch republics, and the Swazi people. In 1894, a convention placed Swaziland under the South African Republic as a protectorate. King Ngwane V died in December 1899, during incwala, after the outbreak of the Second Boer War. His successor, Sobhuza II, was four months old.
The Swaziland Administration Proclamation of 1904 established a commission with the task of examining all the concessions and defining their boundaries. This work was finished by 1907, and the Swaziland Concessions Partition Proclamation provided for a concessions partition commissioner to be appointed to set aside areas for the sole use and occupation of the Swazis.
Following the elections of 1972, the constitution of Swaziland was suspended by King Sobhuza II who thereafter ruled the country by decree until his death in 1982. An attempt to transfer neighbouring parts of South Africa, more precisely parts of the Zulu homeland of KwaZulu and parts of the Swazi homeland of KaNgwane, to Swaziland in 1982 was never realised. The 1990s saw a rise in student and labour protests calling on the king to introduce reforms. Thus, progress towards constitutional reforms began, culminating with the introduction of the current Swazi constitution in 2005.
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On 19 April 2018, Mswati III announced that the Kingdom of Swaziland had been renamed as the Kingdom of Eswatini, reflecting the extant Swazi name for the state eSwatini, to mark the 50th anniversary of Swazi independence. In June 2021, pro-democracy protests broke out across the country, sparking riots, looting, and street skirmishes with police and soldiers.
Conservation Efforts
Eswatini has a spectrum of formal and informal conservation areas that protect the nation's rich biological diversity. These areas comprise about 5% of the country's land area. Eswatini has over 820 species of vertebrates and over 2,400 species of plants, with many endemic species. Eswatini is a signatory to the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), and the United National Framework Convention on Climate Change.
There are three main government ministries responsible for national biodiversity management: the Eswatini National Trust Commission, the Eswatini Environment Authority, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives. There are six formal and more than 10 informal protected areas in the country.
The formally gazetted areas include: Malolotja Nature Reserve, Mantenga Nature Reserve, Mlawula Nature Reserve, Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary, and Mkhaya Game Reserve, and Hlane Royal National Park. In addition to these, there are many private and community nature reserves, as well as some with mixed governance structures. These include: Dombeya Game Reserve, Mbuluzi Game Reserve, Shewula Nature Reserve, Phophonyane Falls Nature Reserve, Royal Jozini, IYSIS (Inyoni Yami), Ngwempisi Wilderness, Sibebe and others.
From 2014 to 2021, Eswatini participated in the "Strengthening the National Protected Areas System" (SNPAS) project. In an effort to broaden the spectrum of areas eligible for conservation support (which practice bona-fide conservation management), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) established a new category for informal, or non-gazetted, conservation areas in 2018. These are now called OECMs, or Other Effective Conservation Measures.
Government and Politics
Eswatini is an absolute monarchy with constitutional provision and Swazi law and customs. The head of state is the king or ngwenyama (lit. 'lion'), currently King Mswati III, who ascended to the throne in 1986 after the death of his father King Sobhuza II in 1982 and a period of regency. According to the country's constitution, the ngwenyama is a symbol of unity and the eternity of the Swazi nation.
By tradition, the king reigns along with his mother (or a ritual substitute), the ndlovukati (lit. 'she-elephant'). The king appoints the prime minister from the legislature and also appoints a majority of senators and a minority of legislators to the lower chamber of the Libandla (parliament) with help from an advisory council. The Swazi bicameral Parliament, or Libandla, consists of the Senate (30 seats; 10 members appointed by the House of Assembly and 20 appointed by the monarch; to serve five-year terms) and the House of Assembly (65 seats; 10 members appointed by the monarch and 55 elected by popular vote; to serve five-year terms).
King Mswati III of Eswatini
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