Former British Colony Renamed ‘eSwatini’

You may not notice, but the makeup of nation-states in the world changes fairly regularly. In the land-grabbing era of colonialism, the trend was for states to lose their sovereignty and become assimilated into an altogether more powerful entity. Today, the opposite is occurring – new states have emerged at pace since the mid 20th century. The British colony of the Gold Coast became Ghana in 1957 whilst Northern Rhodesia came to be known as Zambia in 1964. 

 Swaziland; a small landlocked nation in Southern Africa notable for being the continents last absolute monarchy; didn’t see such changes, prompting some opposition to the amalgamation of English and Swazi into the name.

Amid limited fanfare, the esteemed King Mswati III – a man of 15 wives – has recently announced his country will be renamed ‘eSwatini‘. Unbeknown to him, it would seem that the unusual placement of a capital ‘S’ suggests a Finnish tech start-up more than an independent kingdom.  

 The leader announced the name change, meaning “place of Swazi“ during celebrations of 50 years of independence from the British (which coincided with his 50th birthday). It’s a move which marks an official change to a name used by the king informally for a number of years. He regards ‘eSwatini‘ as being sufficiently different to Switzerland; ostensibly a cause of confusion in the past.