Kenya

Kenya conjures up images of vast savannas populated by thousands of animals; a place where elephants stride across a sweeping landscape ringed by snow-capped mountains. Giraffe graze on acacia trees while great herds of wildebeest migrate across the savannah. Leopards loll in trees until hunger rouses them to stalk and kill. In truth Kenya is a land of beauty and diversity. Within its borders lies a diverse world, with almost every known land formation represented, from arid desert, fertile highlands, and rolling savannah. More than 80 large mammal species, including elephant, lion, rhinoceros, countless smaller animals, rich bird life, reptiles, and insects populate the landscape.

Straddling the equator in East Africa, the Republic of Kenya occupies 224,900 square miles, a land area roughly the size of France. Kenya's five ecologically distinct regions vary in elevation from the warm, fertile low plateau in the west, to the agriculturally productive central highlands at 5000 feet above sea level. The Great Rift Valley, bisecting the central highlands, features steep-walled cliffs plunging 2000 to 3000 feet to a valley floor that is dotted with freshwater and soda lakes.

Rounding out the nation's ecological zones are semiarid plains, deserts, and a 300-mile coastline protected by coral reefs. Mankind has had a long history in the country making Kenya a haven for the palaeontologists and physical anthropologists who study human origins. Rich fossil sites are found in the Rift Valley, Lake Victoria region, and along the Kenyan coastline. The Koobi Fora in the Rift Valley is referred to as the "cradle of mankind," and has yielded more fossil hominids than any other spot on the globe. Today, the people of Kenya are divided into more than 40 different ethnic groups with distinct cultural traditions.

More about Kenya

• Our home: Laikipia
• The Rift Valley & Kigio Wildlife Conservancy
• Mt. Kenya
• Kenya's Coral Coast
• Mt Kilimanjaro (Tanzania)
• The River Nile (Uganda)