50 Fun Facts About East Africa

Which mountain in Tanzania is Africa's highest peak and the world's tallest free-standing mountain?

Kilimanjaro rises 5,895 m above sea level, but its famous ice cap lost over 80% of its area in the 20th century and is projected to vanish by the middle of this one.

Which lake touching Kenya and Tanzania is Africa's largest and the world's largest tropical lake?

Lake Victoria is also the world's second-largest freshwater lake by area, behind only Lake Superior. Explorer John Hanning Speke renamed it for the British queen in 1858.

The word safari, meaning 'journey', entered English in the 1850s from which East African language?

Swahili borrowed the word from the Arabic safar, and about 40% of its vocabulary is Arabic loanwords, a legacy of centuries of trade along the coast.

Which drink comes from an Ethiopian plant that legend says a goatherd saw energize his flock?

Coffee's arabica species, the first to be cultivated, is endemic to southwestern Ethiopia. The goatherd tale of Kaldi is probably a myth: it first appears in print in 1671.

Which Tanzanian archipelago, nicknamed the Spice Islands, was the birthplace of Freddie Mercury?

Zanzibar also lost the shortest war in recorded history: in 1896 British warships bombarded the sultan's palace, and the fighting was over within 45 minutes.

Which national park hosts the yearly migration of over a million wildebeest toward Kenya?

Serengeti herds of over 1.5 million wildebeest and 250,000 zebras follow the rains around a loop of about 800 km, the second-longest overland migration on Earth after the caribou's.

Which Indian Ocean island nation was first settled by seafarers from present-day Indonesia?

Madagascar broke away from the Indian subcontinent about 90 million years ago, and that long isolation left more than 90% of its wildlife found nowhere else on Earth.

Which cattle-herding people of Kenya and Tanzania are known for the adumu, a warriors' jumping dance?

Maasai warriors are judged on the height of their jumps in the adumu, which is thought to have begun as a way to train for combat and show off stamina.

Which animals, called the Man-Eaters of Tsavo, killed dozens of railway workers in Kenya in 1898?

Lions hunting as a pair stalked the camp for nine months until project leader John Henry Patterson shot both. After 25 years as his floor rugs, their skins went to Chicago's Field Museum.

Which primatologist began studying wild chimpanzees at Gombe Stream in Tanzania in 1960?

Jane Goodall showed that chimpanzees make and use tools, a skill once thought to set humans apart, and her field research went on for more than six decades.

Which country protects about half the world's mountain gorillas in its Bwindi Impenetrable National Park?

Uganda is one of only three countries where mountain gorillas live wild. Only about a thousand of the apes survive, split between two separate populations.

Which East African capital, nicknamed the Green City under the Sun, has a national park inside its boundaries?

Nairobi began in the 1890s as a rail depot for a line being built inland from the coast. It is now home to the United Nations Environment Programme.

Which 3.2-million-year-old fossil skeleton, found in Ethiopia in 1974, was named after a Beatles song?

Lucy got her name because Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds played over and over in camp on the night of the find. About 40% of her skeleton was recovered.

Which emperor of Ethiopia, overthrown in 1974, is revered as a messiah by followers of Rastafari?

Haile Selassie was known before his coronation as Ras Tafari Makonnen, which gave the Rastafari faith its name, yet he himself stayed an Ethiopian Orthodox Christian.

Which country, nicknamed the land of a thousand hills, suffered a 1994 genocide against the Tutsi?

Rwanda's genocide began within hours of the president's plane being shot down, and it ended that July with a military victory by the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front.

Which East African country has the longest coastline on the African mainland, at more than 3,300 km?

Somalia is also the easternmost country on the African mainland, and its shore faces two bodies of water: the Gulf of Aden to the north and the Indian Ocean to the east.

Which flightless bird lived only on Mauritius, where Dutch sailors first recorded it in 1598?

The dodo was last reliably sighted in 1662, within a lifetime of that first report. Its closest living relative is a pigeon, the Nicobar pigeon.

Which Kenyan runner covered the marathon distance in under two hours in Vienna in 2019?

Eliud Kipchoge ran 1:59:40 behind 41 rotating pacemakers, which is why the time was never ratified as a world record. He also won Olympic marathon gold in 2016 and 2020.

Which capital city, whose name means 'new flower', hosts the headquarters of the African Union?

Addis Ababa sits about 2,355 m above sea level, which makes it the highest capital city in Africa. Emperor Menelik II founded it in the 1880s.

Which European power did Ethiopia's Emperor Menelik II defeat at the Battle of Adwa in 1896?

Italy had tried to impose a protectorate through a disputed treaty. Its defeat left Ethiopia the only African country of the era to owe its independence to a military victory.

Which city in the centre of Tanzania was chosen in the 1970s to replace Dar es Salaam as national capital?

Dodoma was picked to put the seat of government in the middle of the country, yet Dar es Salaam remains Tanzania's largest city and its commercial capital.

Which capital city was the scene of the 1993 battle dramatised in Ridley Scott's film Black Hawk Down?

Mogadishu militiamen shot down American Black Hawk helicopters with rocket-propelled grenades. The battle killed 18 US soldiers and built support in Washington for a withdrawal.

Which fossil site in northern Tanzania did Mary and Louis Leakey excavate in search of early human ancestors?

Olduvai Gorge yielded the jawbone that defined the species Homo habilis in 1960, spotted by the couple's son Jonathan. The species lived there about 1.9 million years ago.

Which port, Kenya's second-largest city, is guarded by the 16th-century Fort Jesus?

Mombasa's fort was built by the Portuguese in the 1590s and was captured and recaptured at least nine times before the British turned it into a prison in 1895.

Which uprising of the 1950s pitted mainly Kikuyu fighters against British colonial rule in Kenya?

Mau Mau forces were broken as a military threat when their field marshal Dedan Kimathi was captured in 1956, but Kenya won its independence only seven years later.

Which language family, spread by a migration out of West-Central Africa, includes Kikuyu, Luganda and Zulu?

Bantu languages number about 600. Their speakers' ancestors began spreading from the Cameroon area thousands of years ago and reached both eastern and southern Africa.

Which lake, the longest freshwater lake in the world, is second only to Siberia's Baikal in depth?

Lake Tanganyika is so long and deep that it holds about 16% of the world's available fresh water, and its shores are shared among four countries.

Which spongy, sour flatbread made from teff flour is served under the stews of an Ethiopian meal?

Injera is both platter and utensil: stews are placed on top, and diners tear off pieces of the bread to scoop them up. Its grain, teff, originated in Ethiopia.

Which Kenyan founder of the Green Belt Movement was the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize?

Wangari Maathai won the prize in 2004 for a movement built on planting trees. She had earlier become the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate.

Which European power held mainland Tanzania as a colony until its defeat in the First World War?

Germany's commander in the colony, Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, was never captured and kept his force intact all war, a campaign one historian called history's greatest guerrilla operation.

Which Tanzanian crater, formed when a volcano collapsed, is the world's largest inactive, intact, unfilled caldera?

Ngorongoro Crater formed two to three million years ago, and about 25,000 large animals now live on its floor, some 610 m below the rim.

Which Ethiopian town is famous for monolithic churches cut from solid rock, a World Heritage Site since 1978?

Lalibela is named for the king traditionally credited with the churches, who reigned around 1200, though scholars think the site took shape over several phases of building.

Which ancient kingdom in northern Ethiopia adopted Christianity in the 4th century under King Ezana?

Aksum minted coins that have turned up as far away as southern India, and the prophet Mani ranked it among the four great powers of his day beside Rome, Persia and China.

Which mobile money service launched by Safaricom in Kenya in 2007 lets users send cash by text message?

M-Pesa joins M for mobile to pesa, a regional word for money. By 2010 it was the most successful mobile-phone-based financial service in the developing world.

Which small East African country contains Lake Assal, a salt lake that is Africa's lowest point on land?

Djibouti's Lake Assal lies 155 m below sea level, the third-lowest point on Earth's land surface, and evaporation has left its water ten times saltier than the sea.

Which country won independence from Ethiopia in 1993 after a three-decade war and a referendum?

Eritrea took the whole Red Sea coastline with it, which left Ethiopia as the most populous landlocked country in the world.

Which city became a national capital in 2011 when South Sudan gained its independence?

Juba kept the role even though influential parties wanted the capital to be Ramciel instead. It had been the seat of the south's autonomous government since 2005.

Which Portuguese explorer hired a pilot at the Kenyan port of Malindi to guide his fleet to India in 1498?

Vasco da Gama had met hostility at a rival port days earlier. In Malindi he hired a Gujarati pilot whose knowledge of the monsoon winds carried the fleet across to India.

Which river rising at Lake Tana feeds Ethiopia's giant Renaissance Dam, Africa's largest hydropower plant?

The Blue Nile is known in Ethiopia as the Abay, and in the rainy season it supplies about 85% of the water in the main river downstream.

Which actress raised in Kenya won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for 12 Years a Slave?

Lupita Nyong'o was born in Mexico City to Kenyan parents, who followed a Luo tradition of naming a child after the events of the day and chose a Spanish name.

Which lake in northern Kenya, nicknamed the Jade Sea, is the world's largest permanent desert lake?

Lake Turkana was called Lake Rudolf, after an Austrian crown prince, until Kenya renamed it in 1975 for the people who live around its shores.

Which depression in Ethiopia's Afar region is Earth's hottest place by year-round average temperature?

The Danakil Depression lies about 125 m below sea level at the northern tip of the Afar rift, where the Earth's crust has been stretching thin and sinking.

Which word meaning 'fraternity' named the socialist ideology behind Julius Nyerere's policies in Tanzania?

Ujamaa turned coercive in the mid-1970s, when a forced villagization drive called Operation Vijiji moved millions of rural Tanzanians into new settlements.

Which city in the centre of Burundi replaced Bujumbura as the country's political capital in 2019?

Gitega had been the royal capital of the Kingdom of Burundi until the monarchy was abolished in 1966, so the vote in parliament handed back a status it once held.

Which Tanzanian city below Mount Meru serves as headquarters of the East African Community?

Arusha also hosts the African Court of the African Union, and from 1994 to 2015 a United Nations war crimes tribunal sat in the city.

What name do Kenyans give the privately owned, often lavishly decorated minibuses that run as shared taxis?

Matatu comes from a local colloquialism meaning three. Many of the buses carry portraits of famous people and painted slogans, and by law they must have speed governors.

Which stimulant leaf, first grown around Harar in Ethiopia, is chewed socially from Kenya to Yemen?

Khat contains cathinone, a stimulant that brings excitement and mild euphoria. Ethiopia and Kenya are the biggest exporters, and the chewing custom goes back thousands of years.

Which Ethiopian won the 1960 Olympic marathon barefoot, then retained the title four years later in Tokyo?

Abebe Bikila ran without shoes because the new pair he bought before the race gave him blisters. In Tokyo he became the first athlete to defend an Olympic marathon title.

Which strait, a global chokepoint between Yemen and the Horn of Africa, links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden?

Bab-el-Mandeb means Gate of Grief in Arabic. In 2008 a company unveiled plans to span it with a 'Bridge of the Horns' that would join Arabia to Africa.

Which people around Tanzania's Lake Eyasi are among the last nomadic hunter-gatherer societies on Earth?

The Hadza number barely more than a thousand, and their language, which uses click sounds, is an isolate with no known relatives.