Roofing in Eswatini

Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) is a small, landlocked kingdom between South Africa and Mozambique. Round houses with conical grass-thatched roofs (rondavels) are among its traditional dwellings, and reeds remain culturally important, as in the annual Umhlanga reed dance. In modern housing, metal sheet roofs dominate.

Climate and hazards

The country spans highveld, middleveld and lowveld zones with summer rainfall and thunderstorms. Lightning and fire are the usual risks for thatched roofs in the region (see SANS 10407 thatched roof construction for South African practice).

Roofing history

Border Cave, just across the border in South Africa's Lebombo Mountains, contains grass bedding about 200,000 years old, among the oldest evidence of people preparing sleeping places under a rock shelter. By the 2014 household survey, metal sheet covered most homes.

Traditional and vernacular roofs

• Rondavel: round house with a conical thatched roof, also found in Eswatini.

Roofing today

In the unweighted 2014 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey sample (4,864 households with a recorded roof):

Main roof material (HC4)	Share of sampled households
Metal / tin (corrugated iron)	86.0%
Thatch / palm leaf	7.3%
Asbestos	3.5%
Ceramic tiles	2.1%
Cement / concrete	0.7%
Calamine / cement fibre and other	0.4%

Walls in the same sample were mostly cement (67.7%) and cement blocks (10.2%), with sticks and mud on about 10%.

Notable roofs

• Ludzidzini Royal Village: residence of the Queen Mother and venue of the annual Umhlanga (reed dance) ceremony.

Sources and gaps

No national roofing standard was identified. No information on domestic roofing manufacturers was found in published sources. No siSwati roofing terms were found.

Survey shares are unweighted sample counts. Documentation of Swazi beehive huts and thatching techniques, construction of royal-village huts and the 2017 census housing tables: published information is limited.