Nairobi in the context of "Nairobi–Nakuru–Mau Summit Highway"

The following is a list of the 100 largest cities in Africa by urban population using the most recent official estimate. This reflects only cities located geographically in Africa including related islands.

The United Nations Office at Nairobi (UNON, Swahili: Ofisi ya Umoja wa Mataifa Nairobi) in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, is one of four major United Nations office sites where numerous different UN agencies have a joint presence. Established in 1996, it is the UN's official headquarters in Africa.

The United Nations Office at Nairobi also hosts the global headquarters for two programmes: the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat).

Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 53.3 million as of mid-2025, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. Kenya's capital and largest city is Nairobi. The second-largest and oldest city is Mombasa, a major port city located on Mombasa Island. Other major cities within the country include Kisumu, Nakuru and Eldoret. Going clockwise Kenya is bordered by South Sudan to the northwest (though much of that border includes the disputed Ilemi Triangle), Ethiopia to the north, Somalia to the east, the Indian Ocean to the southeast, Tanzania to the southwest, and Lake Victoria and Uganda to the west.

Kenya's geography, climate and population vary widely. In western rift valley counties, the landscape includes cold, snow-capped mountaintops (such as Batian, Nelion, and Point Lenana on Mount Kenya) with vast surrounding forests, wildlife, and fertile agricultural regions in temperate climates. In other areas, there are dry, arid, and semi-arid climates, as well as absolute deserts (such as Chalbi Desert and Nyiri Desert).

Mombasa (/mɒmˈbæsə/ mom-BASS-ə; also US: /-ˈbɑːsə/ -⁠BAH-sə) is a coastal city in southeastern Kenya along the Indian Ocean. It was the first capital of British East Africa, before Nairobi was elevated to capital status in 1907. It now serves as the capital of Mombasa County. Buildings in the CBD are blue and white, representing the Indian Ocean. It is the country's oldest (c. 900 A.D.) and second-largest city after Nairobi, with a population of about 1,208,333 people according to the 2019 census.

Mombasa's location on the Indian Ocean made it a historical trading centre, and it has been controlled by many countries because of its strategic location. Kenyan school history books place the founding of Mombasa as 900 AD. It must have been already a prosperous trading town in the 12th century, as the Arab geographer al-Idrisi mentions it in 1151. It was a part of the Kilwa Sultanate from approximately the early 14th century until the dissolution of the sultanate in 1513. The oldest stone mosque in Mombasa, Mnara, was built c. 1300. The Mandhry Mosque, built in 1570, has a minaret that contains a regionally specific ogee arch. The city later came under the occupation and control of the Omani Empire in the late 17th century.

This is a list of national capitals ordered by elevation. Higher elevations typically have social, economic, and architectural effects on cities, in particular colder temperatures in winter. Low elevation cities are often seaports or are close to the sea.

The first country on the main list, Bolivia, is a country with multiple capitals; La Paz is the seat of the government while Sucre is the constitutional capital.

The Nubi language (also called Ki-Nubi, Arabic: كي-نوبي, romanized: kī-nūbī) is a Sudanese Arabic-based creole language spoken in Uganda around Bombo, and in Kenya around Kibera, by the Ugandan Nubians, many of whom are descendants of Emin Pasha's Sudanese soldiers who were settled there by the British colonial administration. It was spoken by about 15,000 people in Uganda in 1991 (according to the census), and an estimated 10,000 in Kenya; another source estimates about 50,000 speakers as of 2001. 90% of the lexicon derives from Arabic, but the grammar has been simplified, as has the sound system. Nairobi has the greatest concentration of Nubi speakers. Nubi has the prefixing, suffixing and compounding processes also present in Arabic.

Many Nubi speakers are Kakwa who came from the Nubian region, first into Equatoria, and from there southwards into Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They rose to prominence under Ugandan President Idi Amin, who was Kakwa.

The Transitional Federal Government (TFG; Somali: Dowladda Federaalka Kumeelgaarka; Arabic: الحكومة الاتحادية الانتقالية; Italian: Governo federale di transizione della Somalia) was the internationally recognized provisional government of Somalia from 14 October 2004 until 20 August 2012. It was established in Nairobi, Kenya, following the Transitional National Government (TNG), and formed part of an internationally backed peace process aimed at restoring state institutions after the collapse of the Somali Democratic Republic in 1991. The TFG operated under the Transitional Federal Charter and represented the 14th attempt to establish a central government since the outbreak of civil war.

Initially based in Kenya, the TFG relocated to Somalia in 2005 amid internal divisions and low public confidence. The first administration, led by President Abdullahi Yusuf, was plagued by disputes over the deployment of foreign troops, deep factionalism, and competing claims of authority. With strong military and political backing from Ethiopia, the TFG was installed in Mogadishu following Ethiopia's 2006 invasion to overthrow the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). This intervention triggered a protracted insurgency led by Al-Shabaab and other Islamist factions. The subsequent Ethiopian military occupation severely undermined the TFG’s legitimacy and contributed to widespread violence, displacement, and the rise of one of Africa’s deadliest insurgencies.

Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 was a scheduled international flight serving the route Addis Ababa–Nairobi–Brazzaville–Lagos–Abidjan. On 23 November 1996, the aircraft serving the flight, a Boeing 767-200ER, was hijacked en route from Addis Ababa to Nairobi by three Ethiopians seeking asylum in Australia. The plane crash-landed in the Indian Ocean near Grande Comore, Comoros Islands, due to fuel exhaustion. Of those onboard, 125 of 175 died in the ditching (water landing), including all three hijackers and six of the 12 crew. It was the first recorded instance of the ditching of a wide-body aircraft.

Nakuru is a city in the Rift Valley region of Kenya. It is the capital of Nakuru County, and it is the fourth largest city in Kenya and the largest in the Rift Valley region. As of 2019, Nakuru had an urban population of 570,674, making it the largest urban center in the Rift Valley, above Eldoret, Uasin Gishu County. The city lies along the Nairobi–Nakuru Highway, 160 kilometres (99 mi) from Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya.