Nairobi

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Nairobi, Kenya's capital and largest city, located at 1795m above sea level is one of the most prominent cities politically, financially and culturally in Africa. It is truly a cosmopolitan and multicultural melting pot buzzing with life and creativity. It contains an immensely diverse composition of large communities of African, Arabic, Asian and European origin that all live side by side in exceptional tolerance of one another rarely seen anywhere else in the world. All religions are tolerated and respected and throughout the country mosques, churches, temples, and other places of worship stand side by side.  Nairobi got its name from a Masai word - enkare nyirobi - "the place of cool waters" and came to life in 1899 during the construction of the East African Railways where a camp and supply depot was set up on a flat swampy stretch of land. Within a few years the camp turned into a thriving town and important centre for trade and travelers from all over East Africa. Attracted by the cool and fertile highlands the Europeans soon settled north and south of Nairobi inevitably leading to friction with the Masai and the Kikuyus that occupied the land. By the 1950s there were more than 80,000 white settlers and resistance was building from the Africans which led to the bloody Mau Mau rebellion that raged until 1956. Pressure mounted on the British and in 1963 Kenya was granted its independence with Jomo Kenyatta as its first president.  Today Nairobi's city centre is filled with skyscrapers surrounded by suburbs with houses and apartments and is still referred to as "the green city in the sun" or "the safari capital of the world". It is a gigantic business hub with arteries running towards numerous countries surrounding it including Sudan, Uganda, Ruanda, Burundi, Somalia and Tanzania. It is also home to a huge amount of UN personal and NGOs that work out of the capital and use Nairobi as their base.   Though Nairobi is a city that very much fits into the 21st century with its abundant restaurants, nightclubs and entertainment attractions, it takes a mere 2 hour's drive out of the city to arrive in bush country surrounded by stunning natural vegetation and abundant wildlife. Altogether the country boasts spectacular sights of everything from mountain forest regions to dry desert landscapes, and from paradisal lake regions to unequaled beaches along the coastal strip. The variety and diversity in landscapes is seldom seen elsewhere in the world. The safari always begins in Nairobi. Because of its location at such a high altitude, and its close proximity to the equator, Nairobi is considered to have one of the healthiest climates in the world. Although the traffic can be frustrating and intense along the roads, the air in the surrounding lush suburbs of Nairobi is still good. With an enormous network of malls, shops, gyms, restaurants, pubs, parks and everything else that a city has to offer Nairobi is still a very comfortable place on earth to live.