49 Fun Facts About Nairobi

Nairobi lies just south of which imaginary line, which crosses Kenya?

The Equator crosses Kenya north of the capital, yet Nairobi is no steamy tropical city: its setting high in the highlands keeps the days mild and the evenings cool.

From which people's language does the name Nairobi come?

Maasai speakers called the place Enkare Nairobi, 'cold water', for the stream and water hole there, and the railway camp pitched beside it in the 1890s simply kept the name.

Nairobi is famous among capital cities for having what on its doorstep, in sight of its skyscrapers?

A national park begins a few kilometres from the city centre, fenced on three sides and left open to the south so that herds can still migrate, while rhinos and zebras roam against the skyline.

Nairobi began in the 1890s as a supply depot on which colonial railway?

The Uganda Railway took its name from its goal, not its route: the original line ran from the Indian Ocean to Lake Victoria, all of it in what is now Kenya.

In 1989 Kenya's president set fire to twelve tons of what on the edge of Nairobi?

Ivory, a whole stockpile of it, went up in a blaze that made headlines around the world and recast Kenya as a champion of wildlife; far bigger pyres have followed.

In 1898, work on the railway that created Nairobi was halted at Tsavo by a pair of man-eating what?

Lions: two maneless males dragged workers from their tents until the bridge engineer shot them, and after some 25 years as rugs on his floor their skins were bought and remounted by a Chicago museum.

Which Nairobi-born conservationist ran Kenya's national museums before taking charge of its wildlife service?

Richard Leakey first became a safari guide to escape his parents' trade, then led the Lake Turkana digs that unearthed Turkana Boy, the skeleton of a youth who died some 1.6 million years ago.

The 'Nairobi fly', which can blister human skin, is really which kind of insect?

A beetle, and it neither bites nor stings: the red-and-black rove beetle carries a toxin that burns only when the insect is crushed against the skin, so the advice is to blow it off.

Nairobi's Indian Bazaar was burned down in the early 1900s to stamp out which disease?

Plague: the town's medical officer had the whole bazaar torched and the street rebuilt from scratch, and it survives today as Biashara Street.

Which mobile-money service, launched in 2007 by Nairobi-based Safaricom, lets people send cash by text message?

M-Pesa pairs M for mobile with pesa, the Swahili for money, and it needs no bank branches: corner shops and airtime sellers act as its cash points.

Which Nairobi landmark, opened in 1973, has a rooftop helipad that is open to the public?

The KICC was Kenya's tallest building for a quarter of a century, so its rooftop became a lookout over the whole city, and visitors still buy tickets to go up.

At a sanctuary and manor hotel in Nairobi's Lang'ata suburb, guests hand-feed which animals?

Giraffes of the rare Rothschild's kind have been bred there since the 1970s, and at the manor they push their heads through the windows to share the guests' breakfast.

Nairobi's main international airport is named after whom?

Jomo Kenyatta, the country's first president, opened the new terminal in March 1978 and died that August, and what had been Embakasi Airport was renamed in his memory.

Which event in August 1998 is commemorated by a memorial park in downtown Nairobi?

The US Embassy bombing killed more than 200 people in Nairobi, most of them Kenyans, and the park laid out where the embassy stood carries their names on a memorial wall.

The eight-lane superhighway opened from Nairobi in 2012 runs to which town, famed for its pineapples?

Thika is known for pineapples, yet Elspeth Huxley's memoir The Flame Trees of Thika, later a British television serial, follows a settler family planting coffee there.

The Standard Gauge Railway opened in 2017 links Nairobi with which port?

Mombasa was twelve hours or more away on the worn-out colonial line before the Madaraka Express, named after the day Kenya won self-rule, replaced it.

Which Nairobi governor was impeached and removed in December 2020?

Mike Sonko was impeached by the county assembly and then removed by the Senate on charges that included abuse of office and gross misconduct, and the assembly's speaker was sworn in to act in his place.

Which high ground to the west is the most prominent feature of the Nairobi area?

The Ngong Hills stand out because they rise on the very edge of the Great Rift Valley: walkers on the ridge look down into the valley on one side and across Nairobi on the other.

Which famous British scientist was born in Nairobi in 1941?

Richard Dawkins was born there because the Second World War had stationed his father in Kenya; the family went home to England when he was eight.

Which campaigner led the fight to save Nairobi's Karura Forest from developers?

Wangari Maathai, later a Nobel Peace laureate, was beaten by security guards in 1999 while planting trees on land handed to developers; after months of protest the president banned all handouts of public land.

What does 'Uhuru' in Uhuru Park mean in Swahili?

Freedom was the watchword of the independence years: Kenya's fourth president was named Uhuru as self-rule approached, and Star Trek's Lieutenant Uhura takes her name from the same word.

Which president's plan for a party skyscraper in Nairobi's Uhuru Park was abandoned after protests?

Daniel arap Moi wanted the tower as a headquarters for his ruling party, but a campaign of protest letters scared off its foreign backers and the park survived.

The Sheldrick Trust's nursery on the edge of Nairobi is world-famous for hand-rearing which orphans?

Elephants are bottle-fed there by keepers and later returned to the wild, a feat made possible when the founder worked out a milk formula that infant elephants could digest.

Which UN bodies have their headquarters in Nairobi?

UN Environment and UN-Habitat make Nairobi one of only four cities with a main UN office; the environment agency came in the 1970s because developing countries pressed for a first UN headquarters of their own.

In which Nairobi suburb is the United Nations compound located?

Gigiri has grown into Nairobi's diplomatic quarter: embassies and international organisations clustered around the UN compound and brought a large expatriate community with them.

Which Nairobi neighbourhood is nicknamed 'Little Mogadishu'?

Eastleigh was laid out in 1921 for Asian residents, but Somali traders have since turned it into a bazaar of stalls and malls selling goods shipped in from Mogadishu and Dubai, camel milk included.

Which Nairobi slum, among Africa's largest, was a main filming location for the 2005 film The Constant Gardener?

Kibera so affected the cast and crew that the film's producer set up a trust in its name to pay for clean water and schooling in the places where it was shot.

In which Netflix science-fiction series is one hero a Nairobi matatu driver nicknamed Van Damn?

Sense8 shot his scenes on location in Nairobi, one of nine cities used for its first season, as it followed strangers around the world who can share each other's skills.

Which writer grew coffee on land that is now a Nairobi suburb sharing her first name?

Karen Blixen ran the farm until drought and falling coffee prices sent her home to Denmark, where she turned those years into a famous memoir; her farmhouse is now a museum.

Which 1985 film set around Nairobi won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture?

Out of Africa took seven Oscars on a night when The Color Purple, with the same eleven nominations, went home with none.

Which Netflix series gave a main character the code-name 'Nairobi'?

Money Heist's robbers hide behind city names so that none knows another's identity; Nairobi, played by Alba Flores, is the expert forger who runs the banknote presses.

Lupita Nyong'o grew up in Nairobi, but in which country was the Oscar winner born?

Mexico City was her birthplace: her father, a Kenyan academic who had left home during a time of political repression, was lecturing there, and her parents followed Luo custom by giving her a name from the place.

What is nyama choma?

Roasted meat, usually goat grilled over charcoal, is as much a social occasion as a dish: friends gather round the fire, eat it with their hands and share ugali and kachumbari salad on the side.

Which Kenyan music genre, rooted in Luo guitar styles, took shape in Nairobi's recording studios?

Benga guitarists set out to copy the syncopated lines of the nyatiti, an eight-string Luo lyre, and the result has been called the most distinctly Kenyan of the country's pop styles.

Nairobi's annual World Athletics Continental Tour meeting is named after which Kenyan running great?

Kip Keino beat the world-record holder Jim Ryun to the Olympic 1,500 metres title in 1968, and the meeting that carries his name has drawn top athletes to Nairobi since 2020.

What are matatus?

Privately owned minibuses compete for every fare, which is why crews cover them in portraits and slogans and fit booming sound systems and screens to pull in passengers.

Which 2015 thriller turns on a drone strike against a safe house in Nairobi?

Eye in the Sky has British and American officers and ministers arguing over one missile after a young girl walks into the kill zone; its Nairobi streets were in fact filmed in South Africa.

Which Nairobi airport handles light aircraft for tourism, medical and farming flights?

Wilson Airport is named after Florence Kerr Wilson, a widowed farmer who launched an airline in 1929 with a single Gipsy Moth biplane and soon held a pilot's licence herself.

A company from which country built both Nairobi's toll expressway and its new railway to the coast?

China Road and Bridge Corporation paid for the expressway itself and will collect the tolls until its money is recovered, when the road passes to the Kenyan government.

Most of Nairobi's piped water comes from reservoirs in which highlands north of the city?

The Aberdare Range also holds Treetops, the lodge where Princess Elizabeth spent the night in 1952 on which her father died and she became queen.

Which leading African novelist chaired the University of Nairobi's literature department in the 1970s?

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o gave up English for Kikuyu in 1977; a Kikuyu play then got him jailed for a year without trial, and he wrote his next novel in his cell.

In which Nairobi suburb is Kenya's national sports complex, built for the 1987 All-Africa Games?

Kasarani lent the complex its everyday name: the main arena is known across Kenya simply as Kasarani Stadium, and it has since staged two world junior athletics championships.

Which Nairobi venue, completed in 1983, has hosted the Safaricom Sevens rugby?

Nyayo National Stadium sits so close to the city centre that it doubles as a stage for rallies and state occasions: a former president's state funeral was held there in 2020.

Which Nairobi club has won the Kenyan Premier League a record number of times?

Gor Mahia take their name from a legendary Luo medicine man famed for his magic, and in 1987 they became the first Kenyan club to win a continental trophy.

Nairobi's Kenya Open golf tournament was promoted in 2019 to which leading professional circuit?

The European Tour had kept the event on its second tier for almost three decades, even though its roll of winners already included Seve Ballesteros and Ian Woosnam.

Nairobi Gymkhana is the home ground of Kenya's national team in which sport?

Cricket: the ground saw Kenya beat Sri Lanka at the 2003 World Cup, the tournament at which the unfancied co-hosts became the first non-Test nation to reach the semi-finals.

Which high-altitude American city is twinned with Nairobi?

Denver earned the name Mile High City because its State Capitol stands 5,280 feet, exactly a mile, above sea level, and it has been twinned with Nairobi since 1975.

Which Tour de France winner was born in Nairobi and first raced for Kenya?

Chris Froome got to his first world championships, in 2006, by entering himself from a Kenyan cycling official's email account, then rode into an official just after the start of his time trial.

Which nickname belongs to Nairobi?

The Green City in the Sun began as anything but: the first railway camp stood on a swampy plain that officials complained was too flat and badly drained for a town.