Regions of Swaziland

Buy data    Donate

Updates: 

The present-day capital (administrative center) of Shiselweni is Nhlangano, according to the preponderance of evidence. There is also considerable evidence that the capital of Shiselweni was Hlatikulu in the 1970s. I can't find anything definite about when the change occurred.

Some versions of FIPS PUB 10-4 listed a fifth district, Praslin (code WZ05). The 1996 draft version of ISO 3166-2 copied it from FIPS, assigning it the code SZ-PR. It was dropped from the 1998 official version of ISO, and from FIPS. I haven't been able to find any other mention of Praslin as a geographical name in Swaziland. There is a Praslin Island in the Seychelles. The FIPS entry was apparently a mistake.

Country overview: 

Short nameSWAZILAND
ISO codeSZ
FIPS codeWZ
LanguageEnglish (en), siSwati (ss)
Time zone+2
CapitalMbabane, Lobamba

 

Swaziland was a British protectorate from 1903 until 1968-09-06, when it became independent.

Other names of country: 

  1. Danish: Swaziland
  2. Dutch: Swaziland, Koninkrijk Swaziland (formal)
  3. English: Kingdom of Swaziland (formal), Ngwane (variant)
  4. Finnish: Swazimaa
  5. French: Swaziland m
  6. German: Swasiland n
  7. Icelandic: Svasíland
  8. Italian: Swaziland m
  9. Norwegian: Swaziland, Kongeriket Swaziland (formal)
  10. Portuguese: Suazilândia, Reino m da Suazilândia f (formal)
  11. siSwati: Umbuso weSwatini (formal)
  12. Russian: Королевство Свазиленд (formal)
  13. Spanish: Suazilandia, Swazilandia, Reino m de Swazilandia (formal)
  14. Swedish: Swaziland
  15. Turkish: Svaziland Krallığı (formal)

Origin of name: 

after King Mswati I (mid-19th century)

Primary subdivisions: 

Swaziland is divided into four regions.

RegionHASCFIPSCodePhonePopulationArea(km.²)Area(mi.²)Capital
HhohhoSZ.HHWZ01H14282,7343,5691,378Mbabane
LubomboSZ.LUWZ02L33207,7315,9452,295Siteki
ManziniSZ.MAWZ03M25319,5304,0701,571Manzini
ShiselweniSZ.SHWZ04S42208,4543,7791,459Nhlangano
4 regions1,018,44917,3636,703
  • HASC: Hierarchical administrative subdivision codes. If periods are replaced by
    hyphens, these are the same as the region codes from the standard ISO 3166-2.
  • FIPS: Codes from FIPS PUB 10-4.
  • Code: Swaziland's postal codes have the format annn, where a is a letter and n
    is a digit. The letter and first digit are determined by the region. The letter also
    appears as the rightmost character on license plates of vehicles registered
    in the region (source [2]).
  • Phone: First digit of telephone access code for places in the region.
  • Population: 2007-05-12 census (source [3]).

Further subdivisions:

See the Constituencies of Swaziland page.

Swaziland is divided into four regions, which are subdivided into 55 tinkhundla (constituencies; singular, inkhundla), which are further subdivided into 360 imiphakatsi.

Territorial extent: 

The UN LOCODE page  for Swaziland lists locations in the country, some of them with their latitudes and longitudes, some with their ISO 3166-2 codes for their subdivisions. This information can be put together to approximate the territorial extent of subdivisions.

Change history: 

At the time of the 1946 census, Swaziland was divided into six districts.

DistrictPopulation
Bremersdorp26,600
Hlatikulu64,444
Mankaiana28,916
Mbabane22,090
Pigg's Peak22,187
Stegi20,978
Total185,215
  • Population: 1946-05-07
    census (source [6]).
  1. 1963-12: Swaziland was reorganized from six districts into four districts.
  2. ~1980: Capital of Shiselweni district moved from Hlatikulu to Nhlangano.
  3. 2005-07-26: Under the new constitution, status of districts changed to regions.

Other names of subdivisions: 

Shiselweni: Shiselwini (variant)

Population history:

Region1966-05-241976-08-251986-08-251997-05-122007-05-12
Hhohho96,000135,481178,936262,203282,734
Lubombo82,000139,345153,958198,109207,731
Manzini101,000114,492192,596287,949319,530
Shiselweni96,000107,617155,569217,598208,454
Total375,000496,935681,059965,8591,018,449

 

Data sources: 1966 - [4]; 1976 - [5]; 1997 - [1]; 2007 - [3]

Sources: 

  1. [1] "1997 Population and Housing census of Swaziland", provisional results. Common Country Assessment - Swaziland, 1997 , Environmental Centre for Swaziland. Retrieved 2001-08-06. Totals include persons outside Swaziland.
  2. [2] Where's That Vehicle Come From? , retrieved 2009-01-31.
  3. [3] National Development Data Centre , retrieved 2010-05-22.
  4. [4] Encyclopædia Britannica, 15th Edition, Chicago, 1984.
  5. [5] Almanaque Abril '85, Editora Abril, São Paulo, 1985.
  6. [6] Demographic Yearbook , 7th Ed. Statistical Office of the United Nations, New York, 1955 (retrieved 2011-08-20).
Back to main statoids page Last updated: 2015-06-30
Copyright © 2001, 2003, 2005, 2009-2011, 2015 by Gwillim Law.