United Nations Office at Nairobi in the context of "United Nations"

The headquarters of the United Nations (UN) is on 17 to 18 acres (6.9 to 7.3 ha) of grounds in the Turtle Bay neighborhood of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It borders First Avenue to the west, 42nd Street to the south, 48th Street to the north, and the East River to the east. Completed in 1952, the complex consists of several structures, including the Secretariat, Conference, and General Assembly buildings, and the Dag Hammarskjöld Library. The complex was designed by a board of architects led by Wallace Harrison and built by the architectural firm Harrison & Abramovitz, with final projects developed by Oscar Niemeyer and Le Corbusier. The term Turtle Bay is occasionally used as a metonym for the UN headquarters or for the United Nations as a whole.

The headquarters holds the seats of the principal organs of the UN, including the General Assembly and the Security Council, but excluding the International Court of Justice, which is seated in The Hague. The United Nations has three additional subsidiary regional headquarters or headquarters districts. These were opened in Geneva (Switzerland) in 1946, Vienna (Austria) in 1980, and Nairobi (Kenya) in 1996. These adjunct offices help represent UN interests, facilitate diplomatic activities, and enjoy certain extraterritorial privileges, but do not contain the seats of major organs.

Nairobi (abbreviated as NBO, NBI or NRB) is the capital and largest city of Kenya, located in the south-central part of the country. As of 2024, it has a population of 4.8 million and a metropolitan population of 5.7 million, making it the 11th most populous city in Africa. Nicknamed the “Green City in the Sun,” Nairobi is uniquely notable for being the only capital city in the world that hosts a national park within its boundaries, and its name originates from the Maasai phrase Enkare Nyirobi, meaning “place of cool waters."

As the capital of the country, Nairobi is home to the Kenyan Parliament Buildings, the State House and the Supreme Court Building. It is the major financial and economic hub of East Africa, hosting thousands of Kenyan businesses and international companies and organisations, including the United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment) and the United Nations Office at Nairobi (UNON). The Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) is one of the largest stock exchanges in Africa and the second-oldest exchange on the continent. It is Africa's fourth-largest stock exchange in terms of trading volume, capable of making 10 million trades a day. Nairobi is considered a global city and was ranked as a "Beta World City" by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network as of 2024.

The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) is the United Nations programme for human settlements and sustainable urban development. It was established in 1977 as an outcome of the first United Nations Conference on Human Settlements and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat I) held in Vancouver, Canada, in 1976. UN-Habitat maintains its headquarters at the United Nations Office at Nairobi, Kenya. It is mandated by the United Nations General Assembly to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all. It is a member of the United Nations Development Group. The mandate of UN-Habitat derives from the Habitat Agenda, adopted by the United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) in Istanbul, Turkey, in 1996. The twin goals of the Habitat Agenda are adequate shelter for all and the development of sustainable human settlements in an urbanizing world.