Even if you've never been to Kenya, chances are you know what it looks like.

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Geography

Kenya's savanna is familiar from movies, TV shows, books, and commercials. It's the landscape many people imagine when they think of Africa.

Kenya is located in East Africa. Its terrain rises from a low coastal plain on the Indian Ocean to mountains and plateaus at its center. Most Kenyans live in the highlands, where Nairobi, the capital, sits at an altitude of 5,500 feet (1,700 meters).

West of Nairobi the land descends to the Great Rift Valley, a 4,000-mile (6,400-kilometer) tear in the Earth's crust. Within this valley in the deserts of northern Kenya are the jade-green waters of famous Lake Turkana.

People & culture

In Kenya, more than 60 languages are spoken and there are more than 40 ethnic groups. Almost everyone there speaks more than one African language.

School is free in Kenya, but many children are too busy to go to classes. They help their families by working the land, tending cattle, cooking, or fetching water.

Music and storytelling are important parts of Kenyan culture. For centuries, tribes throughout the country have used songs, stories, and poems to pass on their beliefs, history, and customs.

Nature

Millions of people visit Kenya each year to see its endless savanna and the animals that inhabit it: elephants, lions, cheetahs, giraffes, zebras, hippos, rhinos, and more. The Kenyan government has set up more than 50 reserves and parks to protect these animals.

People seeking African wildlife usually focus on Kenya's lowland savannas. But Kenya's ecosystems also include deserts, swamps, mountain, and forests. Each region has its own mix of plants and animals that are suited to the area's particular conditions. Kenya's highland forests are home to many animals found nowhere else in the world.

 

Source: https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/geography/countries/article/kenya