KaNgwane was a bantustan in South Africa, intended by the apartheid government to be a semi-independent homeland for the Swazi people. Formerly called the "Swazi Territory", the homeland was granted nominal self-rule in 1981. Schoemansdal was designated as its capital. Its official capital was at Louieville (formerly Nyamasane). It was the least populous of the ten homelands, with an estimated 183,000 inhabitants only.
An attempt to transfer parts of the homeland to the neighboring (genuinely independent) country of Swaziland in 1982 failed following protests. The homeland's territory had been claimed by Sobhuza II of Swaziland|King Sobhuza of Swaziland as part of the Swazi monarchs' traditional realm, and the South African government hoped to use the homeland as a buffer zone against guerrilla infiltration from Mozambique. It responded to the failure of the transfer by temporarily suspending the autonomy of KaNgwane, then restoring it in 1984.
Unlike the other homelands in South Africa, KaNgwane did not adopt a distinctive flag of its own and flew the national flag of South Africa.
KaNgwane was re-integrated into Transvaal on 26 April1994. Its territory now forms part of the provinces of Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal.
