Its Indian Ocean coast provided historically important ports by which goods from Arabian and Asian traders have entered the continent for many centuries. Along that coast, which holds some of the finest beaches in Africa, are predominantly Muslim Swahili cities such as Mombasa, a historic center that has contributed much to the musical and culinary heritage of the country.
Inland are populous highlands famed for both their tea plantations, an economic staple during the British colonial era, and their variety of animal species, including lions, elephants, cheetahs, rhinoceroses, and hippopotamuses. Western Kenya is marked by lakes and rivers, while desert and semidesert areas are found in the north and the central south.
The country’s diverse wildlife and panoramic geography draw large numbers of visitors, and tourism is an important contributor to Kenya’s economy. The capital of Kenya is Nairobi, a sprawling city that, like many other African metropolises, is a study in contrasts, with modern skyscrapers looking out over vast shantytowns in the distance, many harboring refugees fleeing civil wars in neighboring countries.
With a long history of musical and artistic expression, Kenya enjoys a rich tradition of oral and written literature, including many fables that speak to the virtues of determination and perseverance, important and widely shared values, given the country’s experience during the struggle for independence.
Kikuyu writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o, one of the country’s best-known authors internationally, addresses these concerns in his remarks on one folkloric figure: Hare being small, weak, but full of innovative wit, was our hero. We identified with him as he struggled against the brutes of prey like lion, leopard, and hyena. His victories were our victories and we learnt that the apparently weak can outwit the strong.
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Relief and Geographic Regions
The 38th meridian divides Kenya into two halves of striking contrast. While the eastern half slopes gently to the coral-backed seashore, the western portion rises more abruptly through a series of hills and plateaus to the Eastern Rift Valley, known in Kenya as the Central Rift. West of the Rift is a westward-sloping plateau, the lowest part of which is occupied by Lake Victoria.
Within this basic framework, Kenya is divided into the following geographic regions: the Lake Victoria basin, the Rift Valley and associated highlands, the eastern plateau forelands, the semiarid and arid areas of the north and south, and the coast.
The Lake Victoria basin is part of a plateau rising eastward from the lakeshore to the Rift highlands. The lower part, forming the lake basin proper, is itself a plateau area lying between 3,000 and 4,000 feet (900 and 1,200 meters) above sea level. The rolling grassland of this plateau is cut almost in half by the Kano Plain, into which an arm of the lake known as Winam Gulf (Kavirondo Gulf) extends eastward for 50 miles (80 km).
The floor of the Kano Plain merges north and south into highlands characterized by a number of extinct volcanoes. These include Mount Elgon, rising to 14,178 feet (4,321 meters) at the Ugandan border on the extreme north of the basin.
Kenya's Lake Nakuru is known for the vast numbers of pink flamingos that historically flocked to its waters, although their numbers declined in the early 21st century.
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The Rift Valley
The Rift Valley splits the highland region into two sections: the Mau Escarpment to the west and the Aberdare Range to the east. The valley itself is 30 to 80 miles (50 to 130 km) wide, and its floor rises from about 1,500 feet (450 meters) in the north around Lake Turkana (formerly Lake Rudolf) to over 7,000 feet (2,100 meters) at Lake Naivasha but then drops to 2,000 feet (600 meters) at the Tanzanian border in the south.
The floor of the Rift is occupied by a chain of shallow lakes separated by extinct volcanoes. Lake Naivasha is the largest of these; the others include Lakes Magadi, Nakuru, Bogoria, and Baringo.
West of the valley the diverse highland area runs from the thick lava block of the Mau Escarpment-Mount Tinderet complex northward to the Uasin Gishu Plateau. East of the Rift the Aberdare Range rises to nearly 10,000 feet (3,000 meters). The eastern highlands extend from the Ngong Hills and the uplands bordering Tanzania northward to the Laikipia Escarpment.
Farther east they are linked by the Nyeri saddle to Mount Kenya, the country’s highest peak, at 17,058 feet (5,199 meters). The relief of both highlands is complex and includes plains, deep valleys, and mountains. Important in the historic and economic development of Kenya, the region was the focus of European settlement.
Eastern Plateau Forelands and Arid Regions
The eastern plateau forelands, located just east of the Rift highlands, constitute a vast plateau of ancient rocks gently sloping to the coastal plain. They are a region of scattered hills and striking elevated formations, the most prominent being the hills of Taita, Kasigau, Machakos, and Kitui. These hills, containing the area of more favorable climate, are surrounded by regions historically prone to famine.
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The semiarid and arid areas in the north and northeast are part of a vast region extending from the Ugandan border through Lake Turkana to the plateau area between the Ethiopian and Kenyan highlands. (The area from Lake Magadi southward, though not as arid, has the same characteristics.) Although tree and grass cover is scanty there, the areas of true desert are limited to the Chalbi Desert east of Lake Turkana.
The movement of people and livestock is strictly limited by the availability of water.
Coastal Plain
The coastal plain proper, which runs for about 250 miles (400 km) along the Indian Ocean, is a narrow strip only about 10 miles (16 km) wide in the south, but in the Tana River lowlands to the north it broadens to about 100 miles (160 km). Farther northeast it merges into the lowlands of Somalia.
The excellent natural harbors include that of Mombasa, which is one of the best in East Africa.
Drainage
Kenya’s drainage pattern originated when a large oval dome of rock arose in the west-central part of the country and created the Central Rift. This dome produced a primeval watershed from which rivers once drained eastward to the Indian Ocean and westward to the Congo River system and the Atlantic Ocean.
Still following this ancient pattern are the Tana and Galana rivers, which rise in the eastern highlands and flow roughly southeast to the Indian Ocean. West of the Central Rift, however, the major streams now drain into Lake Victoria. These include the Nzoia, Yala, Mara, and Nyando rivers.
Between the eastern and western systems, the rifting of the dome’s crust has created a complex pattern of internal streams that feed the major lakes. There are no major groundwater basins, and, apart from the Tana River, most of the rivers in Kenya are short and often disappear during the dry season.
Lake Victoria, with a surface area of 26,828 square miles (69,484 square km), is the largest lake in Africa, the second largest freshwater body in the world, and a major reservoir of the Nile River. Lake Turkana, some 150 miles (240 km) long and 20 miles (30 km) wide, is the largest of the country’s Rift Valley lakes.
Other lakes are rather small, and their surface areas fluctuate considerably.
Soils
In the Lake Victoria basin, lava deposits have produced fertile and sandy loam soils in the plateaus north and south of Winam Bay, while the volcanic pile of Mount Elgon produces highly fertile volcanic soils well known for coffee and tea production.
The Rift Valley and associated highlands are composed of fertile dark brown loams developed on younger volcanic deposits. The most widespread soils in Kenya, however, are the sandy soils of the semiarid regions between the coast and the Rift highlands. To the north of the Rift are vast areas covered by red desert soils, mainly sandy loams.
Kenya’s soils are subject to widespread erosion largely because of the lack of forest cover; overgrazing and cultivation, especially in the arid and semiarid regions, also contribute to soil loss.
Climate
The climate of Kenya varies by location, from mostly cool every day, to always warm/hot by mid afternoon. The climate along the coast is tropical. This means rainfall and temperatures are higher than inland throughout the year. At the coastal cities, Mombasa, Lamu and Malindi, the air temperature changes from cool to hot, almost every day.
The further inland one is in Kenya, the more arid the climate becomes. An extremely arid climate is nearly devoid of rainfall, and temperature varies widely according to the general time of the day/night.
Elevation is the major factor in temperature levels, with the higher areas, on average, about 11 °C (20 °F) cooler, day or night. The many cities over a kilometre in elevation have temperature swings from roughly 10-26 °C (50-79 °F). At lower altitudes, the increased temperature is like day and night, literally: like starting the morning at the highland daytime high, and then adding the heat of the day, again.
Hence, the overnight low temperatures near sea level are nearly the same as the high temperatures of the elevated Kenyan highlands. There are slight seasonal variations in temperature, of 4 °C or 7.2 °F, cooler in the winter months. On the high mountains, such as Mount Kenya, Mount Elgon and Kilimanjaro, the weather can become bitterly cold for most of the year.
Rainfall in most of East Africa east of the Rwenzoris and Ethiopian Highlands is characterised by two main rainfall seasons, the long rains from March to May and the short rains from October to December. This is usually attributed to the passage of the Intertropical Convergence Zone across the region in those months, but it may also be analogous to the autumn monsoon rains of parts of Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and the Brazilian Nordeste.
West of the mountains, the rainfall pattern is more typically tropical, with rain throughout the year near the equator and a single wet season in most of the Ethiopian Highlands from June to September - contracting to July and August around Asmara. Annual rainfall here ranges from over 1,600 mm (63 in) on the western slopes to around 1,250 mm (49 in) at Addis Ababa and 550 mm (22 in) at Asmara.
Rainfall variability is influenced by both El Niño events and a positive Indian Ocean Dipole. El Niño events tend to increase rainfall except in the northern and western parts of the Ethiopian and Eritrean highlands, where they produce drought and poor Nile floods. Similarly, a positive Indian Ocean Dipole result in warm sea-surface temperatures off the coast of East Africa and lead to increased rainfall over East Africa.
Temperatures in East Africa, except on the hot and generally humid coastal belt, are moderate, with maxima of around 25 °C (77 °F) and minima of 15 °C (59 °F) at an altitude of 1,500 metres (4,921 ft).
Climate Change
Climate change is posing an increasing threat to global socioeconomic development and environmental sustainability. Developing countries with low adaptive capacity and high vulnerability to the phenomenon are disproportionately affected. The effects of these climatic changes have made already existing challenges with water security, food security and economic growth even more difficult.
Harvests and agricultural production which account for about 33% of total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) are also at risk. Hot and dry conditions in Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASALs) make droughts or flooding brought on by extreme weather changes even more dangerous.
Terrain and Land Use
Kenya's terrain is composed of low plains that rise into central highlands that are, in turn, bisected by the Great Rift Valley. The lowest point on Kenya is at sea level on the Indian Ocean. 9.8% of the land is arable; permanent crops occupy 0.9% of the land, permanent pasture occupies 37.4% of the land; forest occupies 6.1% of the land. Other uses make up the rest of Kenya's land.
Volcanic Activity
There is limited volcanic activity in the country. Barrier Volcano (elev. 1,032 m) last erupted in 1921. Note: Kalukwakerith Mountain is in the disputed Ilemi Triangle region.
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