History of Nairobi

The earliest account of Nairobi's () history dates back to 1899 when a railway depot was built in a brackish African swamp occupied only by a nomadic people, the Maasai, as well as the pastoral Kikuyu people who were displaced. The railway complex and the building around it rapidly expanded and urbanized until it became the largest city of Kenya and the country's capital. The name "Nairobi" comes from the Maasai phrase Enkare Nyorobi, which translates to "the place of cool waters". However, Nairobi is popularly known as the "Green City in the Sun."

Pre independence

The former swamp land occupied by the city now was once inhabited by the herding people, the Maasai, under the British East Africa protectorate when the British decided to build a railroad from Mombasa to Kisumu on the edge of Lake Victoria in order to open East Africa and make it accessible for trade and encourage colonial settlements. The Maasai were forcibly removed to allow land for white ranchers.

In 1896, work on the railway began. A British railroad camp and supply depot for the Uganda Railway was built in the Maasai area in 1899. The building soon became the railway's headquarters and a town grew up surrounding it, named after a watering hole known in Maasai as Ewaso Nyirobi, meaning "cool waters." The location of the Nairobi railway camp was chosen due to its central position between......
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