Nairobi

582,650 km²
(14x the Netherlands)

UTC +3

English, Swahili, masaï and over 30 other languages

Mount Kenya - 5,199 m

The Kenyan flag is based on the black-red-green tricolor of the Kenya African National Union who strived for independence of Kenya from British rule. After independence in 1963 the white stripes were added as symbols of peace, as did the masaï shield. The horizontal black stripe represents the struggle for freedom, the red represents the bloodshed and the green represents the country's forests.

The Kenyan shilling was introduced in 1966. It replaces the East African shilling. It is a stable currency for African standards. Depicted on the banknote is Jomo Kenyatta, the first president of Kenya (1964-1978) after the independence from Great Britain.

The Samburu National Reserve is located just north of the equator. The 350 km² park is bisected by the Ewaso Ngiro River. Elsa the Lioness was raised there by the Adamsons. Elsa was made famous with the bestseller 'Born free', written by Joy Adamson. Ewaso Ngiro means brown water. Many elephants come to the river every day. Characteristic animals in this park are the giraffe, Grevy zebra and the Gerenuk. The Gerenuk is a gazelle with a very long neck. It can stand on its hind legs up to 2 meters high to eat the leaves from bushes.

The most impressive waterfall in Kenya is the Thomson's Falls, named after the Scottish geologist Joseph Thomson. He was the first European to see the waterfall. The waterfall is 72 meters high and most impressive after the rainy season.

The Great Rift valley (Great Rift) extends over a length of about 6,500 km from the Dead Sea to Beira in Mozambique. It originated when the African and Eurasian plate collided 30 million years ago and broke up again. The result was a large number of volcanoes and lakes. One of those lakes is Lake Nakuru at an altitude of 1,754 meters. Nakuru means dust, or dusty place. The park, founded in 1961, has a area of 188 km². It is the only park in Kenya totally surrounded with a fence to protect the giraffe and the white- and black rhinoceros. The park has the greatest concentration rhinos with more than 25 black and about 70 white rhinos. The size of the lake ranges from 5 to 45 km². At low water level, there are sometimes more than a million Flamingos that feast on the algae in the warm water.