Eswatini - Kingdom of Eswatini (formerly Kingdom of Swaziland, officially renamed in 2018)
The Kingdom of Eswatini is a small, landlocked country in Southern Africa (the second smallest on the continent), situated on the eastern slope of the Drakensberg mountains, embedded between ► South Africa in the west and ► Mozambique in the east. The country is named after the Swazi, a Bantu tribe.
This section holds a short summary of the history of the area of present-day Swaziland, illustrated with maps, including historical maps of former countries and empires that included present-day Swaziland.
Map of Kingdom of Swaziland, Kingdom of Zululand, Natal and Transvaal 1879
According to tradition, the people of the present Swazi nation migrate south before the 16th century to what is now Mozambique. Following a series of conflicts with people living in this area the Swazis settle in northern Zululand in about 1750. Unable to match the growing Zulu strength, the Swazis move gradually northward in the 1800s and establish themselves in present-day Eswatini. They establish their own Kingdom of Swaziland. Swaziland has to accept a protectorate of the Boer Republic of Transvaal in 1894, but after the Boer Wars the United Kingdom Britain establishes in 1902 a protectorate over Swaziland.In 1968 the Kingdom of Swaziland becomes an independent constitutional monarchy. On 19 April 2018, the acting King Mswati III announced that the Kingdom of Swaziland had renamed itself the Kingdom of Eswatini, reflecting the previous Swazi name for the State of eSwatini, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Swaziland's independence.
Satellite maps
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Notes and references
General remarks:
The WIKIMEDIA COMMONS Atlas of the World is an organized and commented collection of geographical, political and historical maps available at Wikimedia Commons. The main page is therefore the portal to maps and cartography on Wikimedia. That page contains links to entries by country, continent and by topic as well as general notes and references.
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The status of various entities is disputed. See the content for the entities concerned.
The maps of former countries that are more or less continued by a present-day country or had a territory included in only one or two countries are included in the atlas of the present-day country. For example the Ottoman Empire can be found in the Atlas of Turkey.