Kenya

Kenya is situated on the equator in East Africa. It has an Indian Ocean coastline and the Rift Valley runs through the country. The official languages are Kiswahili and English. Since gaining independence in 1963, Kenya has played a major role in humanitarian, maritime, and regional security issues in the Horn of Africa. Kenya is the second largest economy in East Africa. Positive economic growth is expected to continue through the medium term, with recent discoveries of oil, gas, and minerals. Mombasa Port, located on the south coast, is a gateway to East African trade. Filling the country's landscape, adding depth and resonance to Kenya’s age-old story, are some of Africa’s best-known peoples. The Maasai, the Samburu, the Turkana, the Swahili, the Kikuyu: these are the peoples whose histories and daily struggles tell the story of a country and of a continent – the struggle to maintain traditions as the modern world crowds in, the daily fight for survival in some of the harshest environments on earth, the ancient tension between those who farm and those who roam.

Kenya is the land of the Masai Mara, of wildebeest and zebras migrating in their millions with the great predators of Africa following in their wake, and of endangered species like black rhinos managing to maintain their precarious foothold. But Kenya is also home to the red elephants of Tsavo, to Amboseli elephant families in the shadow of Mt Kilimanjaro, and to the massed millions of pink flamingos stepping daintily through lake shallows. Africa is the last great wilderness where these creatures survive. And Kenya is the perfect place to answer Africa’s call of the wild.