Flag of Eswatini

Eswatini’s flag has five horizontal bands: blue, yellow, red, yellow, and blue. The broad red center carries a horizontal black-and-white shield, two spears, and a staff decorated with feather tassels. The complete rectangle is three units wide for every two units high.

Eswatini is the country formerly called Swaziland. The name change took effect on April 19, 2018, while the recognizable national flag design continued. Older laws, archive descriptions, and historical captions therefore use Swaziland or Swazi without necessarily referring to a different national flag.

The flag has five horizontal bands, although only three colors form those background bands. Read them from top to bottom as blue, yellow, red, yellow, and blue. Black and white appear in the central shield, so counting the background colors alone does not describe the complete flag.

The flag is 3:2 in width-to-height terms, equivalent to 2:3 when height is stated first. A 90-by-60-centimeter rectangle has that shape. The entire design, including the shield and weapons, should scale proportionately; stretching the field while leaving the emblem unchanged distorts the composition.

The traditional band-height sequence is 3:1:8:1:3. Each blue band occupies three-sixteenths of the height, each yellow band one-sixteenth, and red one-half. This is the construction used by the supplied conventional SVG. The numerical drawing in the 2024 identity manual differs and is discussed separately.

The government identity manual associates blue with peace and stability, red with past battles, and yellow with the country’s resources. The shield’s black and white express peaceful coexistence between black and white people. These meanings explain the symbolism without turning every tiny decorative shade into a separate national message.

Published renderings use different blues. The supplied conventional SVG uses #3E5EB9, while the 2024 government manual prints Pantone 542 C and C51 M16 Y0 K0. Screen values, printed specifications, and photographed fabric should be kept distinct. A commissioned official flag needs an approved artwork and color proof.

Red is associated with past battles in the government’s explanation. It forms the broad central field, making space for the horizontal shield and weapons. In the conventional 3:1:8:1:3 construction, that red band is half the flag’s total height, substantially wider than either blue band or either yellow stripe.

The yellow stripes are associated with Eswatini’s resources. They separate the large red center from the blue upper and lower bands. Each yellow stripe is narrow in the conventional construction, measuring one-sixteenth of the flag’s height. Yellow also appears in parts of the emblem in familiar published illustrations.

The main object is a horizontal Nguni-style oxhide shield associated with Swazi military tradition. Its black-and-white pattern is linked with peaceful coexistence. Two spears and a staff accompany it, while feather tassels add royal associations. The shield-and-weapons emblem is not the country’s complete coat of arms.

In the conventional obverse view, the black portion of the shield lies toward the hoist, or pole side, and the white portion toward the fly. The two spearheads point toward the fly. Preserve the reference artwork as a whole instead of mirroring only the shield or one weapon.

There are two spears, positioned with the horizontal shield and a separate staff or fighting stick. The long staff should not be counted as a third spear. Keeping these objects distinct helps explain why the emblem has several parallel shafts but only two recognizable spearheads in its familiar rendering.

The feather decorations are described as injobo, with three tassels shown on the emblem. Accounts connect them with widowbird and lourie feathers and with royal use. Published drawings treat their colors differently, so blue graphic tassels should not be mistaken for a literal natural-history illustration of every individual feather.

The 2024 government manual says the tassels changed to black in 2011, yet its illustrated flag still shows blue tassels. Other published artwork uses natural dark feathers. That inconsistency supports distinguishing rendering variants; it does not justify inventing a fully documented legal replacement of the entire national flag.

The 2024 manual describes the flag as 3:2, but its diagram labels a 120-by-78.6-millimeter rectangle. Those numbers are not exactly 3:2. Its band measurements also differ from the traditional 3:1:8:1:3 grid. The discrepancy should be disclosed rather than silently presented as one perfectly consistent construction standard.

The Swaziland Flags and Coat of Arms Act, 1968 defines the national flag, royal standard, and coat of arms in separate parts of its schedule. It commenced on November 29, 1968. The accessible consolidated text reviewed for this article is dated December 1, 1998; that date is not a new flag adoption.

The design is traced to a flag King Sobhuza II gave the Swazi Pioneer Corps in 1941. Its military origin preceded the national raising of April 25, 1967 and independence in 1968. A precursor’s date, a public raising, and later legal recognition describe different stages of the flag’s history.

King Sobhuza II is associated with the flag’s origin through the banner he gave the Swazi Pioneer Corps in 1941. Later refinement preceded national use. The evidence reviewed does not securely identify one named textile maker or establish that the King personally drew every line of the modern digital emblem.

The government identity manual identifies April 25, 1967 as the first raising of the national flag, during the period before independence. April 25 is consequently commemorated as Flag Day. This event should be separated from the October 1967 registration, September 1968 independence, and October 1968 adoption date.

The government identity manual records registration of the flag by the College of Arms on October 30, 1967, following refinement of the design. That milestone came after the April national raising and before independence. Registration should not be substituted for every other date when describing the flag’s adoption history.

The government identity manual gives October 6, 1968 as the adoption date. The flag had already been raised in April 1967, and independence came on September 6, 1968. The Flags and Coat of Arms Act then commenced on November 29, 1968, providing a further, separate legal milestone.

Independence Day is September 6, commemorating independence in 1968, when the country was known as Swaziland. It differs from Flag Day on April 25 and the October 6 adoption date recorded in the identity manual. A national anniversary and the flag’s institutional history therefore answer different calendar questions.

Eswatini observes Flag Day on April 25, commemorating the national flag’s first raising in 1967. A government report records the country marking its fifty-fourth anniversary in 2021. The observance is separate from Independence Day on September 6; a flag commemoration should not be confused with the full public-holiday calendar.

The National Archives lists an original Swazi flag among its holdings. That brief catalog description does not identify a verified textile date, dimensions, maker, or current display arrangement. It supports the existence of a preserved historical object, while leaving those more specific questions open until an authoritative object record is available.

The national flag centers a shield and weapons. The later Mswati III royal standard centers a gold lion and includes smaller royal devices. This differs from the earlier design described in the 1968 Act, which added a gold lion to the upper blue band of the national flag.

No. The flag’s central shield and weapons are not the complete national coat of arms. The Act describes the arms separately, including a shield, crest, lion and elephant supporters, and the motto SIYINQABA. Adding the entire coat of arms to an ordinary national flag would change its familiar design.

Start with an approved master and preserve the complete rectangle, band order, and emblem proportions. Keep the shield markings, paired spears, staff, and tassels legible. Select fabric and construction suited to the intended display, then proof the actual materials and colors rather than treating a screen preview as final manufacturing approval.

The sources reviewed do not establish one mandatory physical size for every private, desk, building, or ceremonial flag. The size examples on this page simply preserve 3:2 proportions and the conventional band grid. For an official installation, obtain the responsible authority’s requirements for the artwork, cloth dimensions, fittings, and placement.

Use the complete design respectfully and follow any official instructions applying to the location or occasion. The 1968 Act authorizes regulations concerning places, times, condition, and use of national symbols. Its enabling provisions should not be misquoted as a verified nationwide daily raising schedule or a universal obligation for every household.

A vertical installation needs a clear orientation instruction from the responsible organizer or authority. The reviewed national sources do not establish a universal vertical-display rule for every setting. Keep the flag’s complete design and proportions, and avoid borrowing another country’s rotation rule or independently reversing the shield and spear arrangement.

Half-mast display is associated with officially directed mourning. A contemporary report documented lowered flags in September 2018 following the death of former Prime Minister Sibusiso Barnabas Dlamini. That historical example is not a current order or an annual rule; the relevant notice should determine the buildings, duration, and arrangements.

This article does not establish a fixed national lowering fraction. The illustration is schematic and simply distinguishes a raised flag from a lowered mourning display. Follow the official instruction for the event and mast concerned, rather than measuring a decorative drawing or importing a numerical rule from another country’s flag code.

Follow the fabric maker’s cleaning instructions, dry the flag before storage, and inspect seams, attachments, and printed details. Replace an everyday flag when fading or damage makes the design unclear. These are practical care recommendations; a historically significant textile should receive conservation advice instead of routine washing or casual disposal.

Copyright status and the regulation of national symbols are separate matters. Public-domain artwork can be reused without a copyright license fee, but the Flag Act authorizes rules about national flags, arms, royal standards, and imitations. An official or commercial application should therefore be checked for any applicable symbol-use requirements.

Both flags show shields and spears, but their layouts differ clearly. Eswatini has a horizontal black-and-white shield and blue-yellow-red-yellow-blue bands. Kenya has an upright shield and crossed spears over black, red, and green bands separated by narrow white stripes. The similar military imagery does not make their designs interchangeable.

Lesotho’s flag has blue, white, and green horizontal bands with a black mokorotlo hat in the center. Eswatini uses five blue-yellow-red-yellow-blue bands and a horizontal shield with weapons. Their references share a 3:2 rectangular shape, but the central symbol and background colors provide immediate ways to distinguish them.

No. It is a U.S. Army photo illustration published in August 2026, based on a March 23 photograph of Brig. Gen. Sotja Dlamini at a summit in Rome. Its creator isolated the flag in color and altered surrounding tones and focus. It provides context, not a calibrated flag-color reference.

Choose the unannotated conventional SVG for a clear, scalable flag illustration, or select the separately labeled lighter-color and natural-tassel references for comparison. Construction sheets, the emblem crop, royal comparison, timeline, and mourning schematic are explanatory images. For official manufacture, confirm the required master rather than assuming every downloadable rendering is interchangeable.

Eswatini’s flag emoji is 🇸🇿. Its underlying regional-indicator letters are SZ, reflecting the country code associated historically with Swaziland. Platforms may render the small emblem differently or show letters instead of a flag. An emoji is a display convenience and cannot serve as a detailed manufacturing or construction reference.

No. The manual’s Pantone labels, its CMYK recipes, and the colors embedded in a digital SVG are different kinds of specifications. The manual also contains an apparent red-label inconsistency. They should be reported accurately as published, with a production proof used to resolve the intended physical appearance before official manufacture.